Mortgagees

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals or institutions that hold a mortgage as a loan secured by real property
2. Parties to whom a mortgage debt is owed, typically in exchange for a loan to purchase or refinance property
3. Creditors that possess a claim against a property through a mortgage agreement, facilitating home financing for borrowers

Etymology: The word is simply the plural of "mortgagee", which names the person who holds a mortgage, the lender who receives a property as security for a loan. Its core, "mortgage", is an older compound: it joins "mort", meaning "dead", with "gage", meaning "pledge", the same "gage" that survives in "engage" and "wager". The pledge is "dead" because it ends, either when the debt is repaid and the property is redeemed or when the land is lost to the lender. The suffix "-ee" does the rest. It came into English from French, where the "-é" ending marked a person who receives an action, so a "mortgagee" is the one to whom the pledge is given, while the borrower is the "mortgagor". The formation is the same as in "employee" or "payee", which follow the same pattern.