The phrase ' flotsam and jetsam' means useless or discarded objects, and is often used together in a sentence: These words are always used with a singular verb. Jetsam ✔ is spelled J.e.t.s.a.m-not 'jetsom' ✘. Jetsam describes debris that was deliberately thrown overboard by a crew of a ship in distress, most often to lighten the ship's load. In recent years jettison has acquired the extended meaning of any kind of discarding or abandonment of objects, persons, or ideas: 'Plans for a new playground were jettisoned by the council's refusal to appropriate needed fund.' According to National Ocean Service:įlotsam is defined as debris in the water that was not deliberately thrown overboard, often as a result from a shipwreck or accident. The cargo thus discarded came to be called jetsam. Jettison originally had the meaning of deliberately discarding cargo by throwing it overboard as a desperate effort to save a ship in danger of wreck. What Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage says: Jet, a plane, or stream of water, is also origin from the same root.Īs it origin suggests throwing out, jettison means to throw something.Īnd, jetsam means something that is thrown. Jettison origins from Latin jactare or jacere means to throw. What is the difference between Jettison and Jetsam? Jettison is a verb. ' These days you don't have to be on a sinking ship to jettison something.' In addition to literally 'throwing overboard,' jettison means simply 'to get rid of.' You might jettison some old magazines that are cluttering your house, or you might make a plan but jettison it at the last minute. The noun is also the source of the word jetsam ('jettisoned goods'), which is often paired with flotsam ('floating wreckage'). Jettison comes from the Anglo-French noun geteson, meaning 'action of throwing,' and is ultimately from the Latin verb jactare, meaning 'to throw.' The noun jettison ('a voluntary sacrifice of cargo to lighten a ship's load in time of distress') entered English in the 15th century the verb has been with us since the 19th century.

Origin of Jettison and Jetsam According to Merriam-Webster: Wreckage of a ship floating in the water is also called jetsam.

Goods that are thrown away especially from a moving ship or airplane.

To dig or cultivate very deeply, usually by digging parallel contiguous trenches in succession, filling each from the next.What is the meaning of Jetsam ? Jetsam is jettisoned goods.

To trench land for the purpose of draining it This weak impress of love is as a figure / Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat / Dissolves to water, and doth lose its form. The wide wound that the boar had trenched / In his soft flank.

To cut to form or shape by cutting to make by incision, hewing, etc.

(archaeology) To excavate an elongated and often narrow pit.

No more shall trenching war channel her fields.

(military, infantry) To excavate an elongated pit for protection of soldiers and or equipment, usually perpendicular to the line of sight toward the enemy.Ur ideas, therefore, must trench upon the province of tactics. He could make what laws he pleased, as long as those laws did not trench upon property rights. * 1949, ( Charles Austin Beard), American Government and Politics, page 16:.ĭoes it not seem as if for a creature to challenge to itself a boundless attribute, were to trench upon the prerogative of the divine nature? Shee is the Judge, Thou Executioner, Or if thou needs would'st trench upon her power, Thou mightst have yet enjoy'd thy crueltie, With some more thrift, and more varietie. * 1640, ( Ben Jonson), Underwoods, page 68:.(usually, followed by upon) To invade, especially with regard to the rights or the exclusive authority of another to encroach.

Jettison vs jettison abandon