Why this word is great
JETSAM — [Noun] Goods deliberately cast overboard from a ship to lighten it in distress, and, by extension, any discarded odds and ends of little worth. Its etymology flows from Middle English jetteson, from Anglo-Norman getteson, a variant of jettison, ultimately from Latin jactāre ("to throw"). Unlike flotsam, which denotes the accidental floatage of a wreck, or jettison, which names the decisive act of casting away, jetsam is the consequence, the discarded thing itself, forever marked by the choice that made it so. It is the sodden crate of porcelain sinking into the green silence, the waterlogged ledger whose accounts no longer matter, the single salt-caked boot washed ashore on a tidal flat—the tangible sediment of a calculated loss, forever separated from its story.