Mortgaged

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The situation in which a property serves as collateral for a loan while the borrower maintains use of the property occurs when legal contracts bind real estate to ensure repayment of borrowed money
2. A scenario where an asset is used as a guarantee for a debt while the owner retains control over that asset takes place through a formal agreement linking property to financial obligations
3. A state in which real estate acts as security for a loan while allowing the borrower to inhabit and utilize the property occurs through legally binding contracts stipulating repayment conditions

Etymology: The word is the past tense and past participle of "mortgage," and its origin lies in a legal idea that sounds grim: a "dead pledge." Old French combined "mort," meaning dead, with "gage," meaning pledge, to form "mort gage." The French phrase was in turn a translation of the Medieval Latin "mortuum wadium," where "wadium" came from a Frankish word meaning wager or pledge, related to the English "gage" and "wage." The name reflected a precise economic arrangement. Under a mortgage, the rents and profits from the land went to the lender for as long as the pledge remained in place, much like interest on a loan today, and they did not reduce the debt itself. By contrast, a "living gage" (vif gage) let those profits pay down the debt over time, which is why the lender's arrangement was called dead: it yielded nothing toward clearing the obligation.

Synonyms: pledged, secured, borrowed against, encumbered, hypothecated