mortgage

Meanings

Noun

• A special form of secured loan where the purpose of the loan must be specified to the lender, to purchase assets that must be fixed (not movable) property, such as a house or piece of farm land. The assets are registered as the legal property of the borrower but the lender can seize them and dispose of them if they are not satisfied with the manner in which the repayment of the loan is conducted by the borrower. Once the loan is fully repaid, the lender loses this right of seizure and the assets are then deemed to be unencumbered.
• State of being pledged.

Verb

• 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 pledge and make liable; to make subject to obligation; to achieve an immediate result by paying for it in the long term.

Origin

• From Anglo-Norman morgage, Middle French mortgage, from Old French mort gage, after a translation of judicial Medieval Latin mortuum vadium or mortuum wadium, from mortuum + vadium or wadium, of Germanic (Frankish) origin, from a root *waddi, wadja. Compare gage and also wage. So called because the deal dies either when the debt is paid or when payment fails.