flotsam

What it means

1. countableuncountableDebris floating in a river or sea, in particular fragments from a shipwreck.

   “What about that one?” “That'll do nicely. That gaggle of human flotsam doesn't even belong on the sea.”

   2021 October 7, Shana Gohd, “The Siren” (0:17 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 3, episode 7, spoken by Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry)

   2 more examples

   WORF: Sensors beginning to pick up small objects, sir. PICARD: On screen. RIKER: Doesn't look natural. PICARD: Agreed. Enlarge and identify. WORF: It looks like debris from a space vessel of some kind. RIKER: It could be one of those ships that was orbiting Dytallix. LA FORGE: We are in close proximity to that planet. PICARD: Identify marks Mr. Worf. WORF: Nothing so far. Sensors not detecting any bodies in the flotsam. But from the amount of the wreckage, I'm sorry sir, it can only be the Horatio. From the looks of it she's been totally destroyed.

   1988 May 9, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Conspiracy (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Paramount Domestic Television, →OCLC

   STORAGE boxes -- catchalls for flotsam, jetsam, whatnots and thingamajigs -- are gaining new interest as decorative objects for the home.

   1991 May 30, Emily Gwathmey, “Storage Box: Catchall's New Life as Eye-Catcher”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 14 Dec 2024

In a sentence

STORAGE boxes -- catchalls for flotsam, jetsam, whatnots and thingamajigs -- are gaining new interest as decorative objects for the home.

1991 May 30, Emily Gwathmey, “Storage Box: Catchall's New Life as Eye-Catcher”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 14 Dec 2024

Where it comes from

1. Latin-atio
2. Old Frenchflotaison“a floating”
3. Anglo-Normanfloteson
4. Englishflotsam

From Anglo-Norman floteson, from Old French flotaison (“a floating”), from floter (“to float”), of Germanic origin (See float.), + -aison, from Latin -atio.