mortgage
UK /ˈmɔːɡɪd͡ʒ/ · US /ˈmoɹ.ɡɪd͡ʒ/ noun, verb
Forms mortgages mortgaging mortgaged morgage
- noun (law, real estate) A legal agreement in which a borrower pledges real property as collateral for a loan used to purchase or refinance that property.
- noun (obsolete) The state of being pledged. “lands given in mortgage”
- verb (transitive, law) To borrow against a property, to obtain a loan for another purpose by giving away the right of seizure to the lender over a fixed property such as a house or piece of land; to pledge a property in order to get a loan. “to mortgage a property, an estate, or a shop”
- verb (transitive, figurative) To pledge and make liable; to make subject to obligation; to achieve an immediate result by paying for it in the long term.
Etymology
From Middle English morgage and Middle French mortgage, from Anglo-Norman morgage, from Old French mort gage (“dead pledge”), after a translation of judicial Medieval Latin mortuum wadium, with wadium from Frankish *wadi (“wager, pledge”). Compare gage and also wage. So called because rents and profits from the land were owed to the lender for as long as the gage existed (comparable to interest on a loan today), as opposed to the living gage, in which rents and profits automatically reduced the debt (paying it off over time).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A conveyance of property, upon condition, as security for the payment of a debt or the preformance of a duty, and to become void upon payment or performance according to the stipulated terms; also, the written instrument by which the conveyance is made.
- noun State of being pledged; as, lands given in mortgage. Chattel mortgage. See under Chattel.
- verb To grant or convey, as property, for the security of a debt, or other engagement, upon a condition that if the debt or engagement shall be discharged according to the contract, the conveyance shall be void, otherwise to become absolute, subject, however, to the right of redemption.
- verb Hence: To pledge, either literally or figuratively; to make subject to a claim or obligation.
Etymology [F. mort-gage; mort dead (L. mortuus) + gage pledge. See Mortal, and Gage.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “mortgage”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details