mortgage

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A temporary, conditional pledge of property to a creditor as security for performance of an obligation or repayment of a debt.
2. n. A contract or deed specifying the terms of a mortgage.
3. n. The claim of a mortgagee upon mortgaged property.
4. v. To pledge or convey (property) by means of a mortgage.
5. v. To make subject to a claim or risk; pledge against a doubtful outcome: mortgaged their political careers by taking an unpopular stand.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. At common law (and according to the present rule in some of the United States, and in form in nearly all, if not all, the States), a conveyance of real estate or some interest therein, defeasible upon the payment of money or the performance of some other condition.
2. n. By the law of most of the United States, a lien or charge upon specific property, real or personal, created by what purports to be an express transfer of title, with or without possession, but accompanied by a condition that the transfer shall be void if in due time the money be paid or the thing done to secure which the transfer is given. It differs from a pledge in that it is not confined to personal property, and in that it is in form a transfer of title, while a pledge is of chattels and is usually a transfer of possession without the title, but with authority to sell and transfer both title and possession in case of default. (See pledge.) At common law a mortgage was regarded (as in form it is still almost universally expressed) as actually transferring the title. (See , above.) Courts of equity established the rule that a mortgager of real property could, by payment or performance, redeem it even after default, at any time before the court had adjudged his right foreclosed or the mortgagee had caused a sale of the property to pay the debt (see equity of redemption, under equity); consequently mortgages ceased to be regarded in most jurisdictions as a transfer of the title, and are now generally held to create a mere lien, although the form of the instrument is unchanged. The term mortgage is applied indifferently
3. n. A state or condition resembling that of mortgaged property.
4. To grant (land, houses, or other immovable property) as security for money lent or contracted to be paid, or other obligation, on condition that if the obligation shall be discharged according to the contract the grant shall be void, otherwise it shall remain in full force. See mortgage, n., 1.
5. To pledge; make liable; put to pledge; make liable for the payment of any debt or expenditure; put in a position similar to that of being pledged.

Wiktionary

1. n. 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.
2. v. As in "to mortgage a property", 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.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. 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.
2. n. State of being pledged.
3. v. 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.
4. v. Hence: To pledge, either literally or figuratively; to make subject to a claim or obligation.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a conditional conveyance of property as security for the repayment of a loan
2. v. put up as security or collateral