jettison.
Items that have been or are about to be ejected from a boat or balloon to lighten the vessel.
Meaning & usage
Items that have been or are about to be ejected from a boat or balloon to lighten the vessel.
The shoreline was littered with the floating jettison from the wrecked freighter.
Deep-sea divers discovered centuries-old jettison resting on the sandy seafloor.
The act of throwing goods overboard to lighten a ship or aircraft in distress.
The captain ordered the immediate jettison of the heavy cargo to save the sinking ship.
The maritime court spent weeks reviewing the legality of the cargo jettison during the storm.
Where this word comes from
From Anglo-Norman getteson, from Old French getaison, from geter, jeter (modern French: would be *jetaison like pendaison); possibly from a Vulgar Latin *iectātiō, from *iectātus < iectāre, from Latin iactō. Doublet of jetsam.
To eject from a boat, submarine, aircraft, spaceship or hot-air balloon, so as to lighten the load.
The ballooners had to jettison all of their sand bags to make it over the final hill.
The fuel tanks were jettisoned.
To let go or get rid of as being useless or defective.
Where this word comes from
From Anglo-Norman getteson, from Old French getaison, from geter, jeter (modern French: would be *jetaison like pendaison); possibly from a Vulgar Latin *iectātiō, from *iectātus < iectāre, from Latin iactō. Doublet of jetsam.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.