Etymograph

English

mortgage

Mortgage comes from Middle English morgage ‘a mortgage’, and goes back to Old French mort gage ‘dead pledge’.

  1. Old Frenchc. 842–1400mort gage1‘dead pledge’
  2. Anglo-Normanc. 1066–1400morgage1
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500morgage1‘a mortgage’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1815mortgage1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English mortgage
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1815, Walter Scott, Guy Mannering: “The appriser, therefore, (as the holder of a mortgage…”.

Lineage

  1. Old Frenchc. 842–1400mort gageWiktionary, English mortgage‘dead pledge’
  2. Anglo-Normanc. 1066–1400morgageWiktionary, English mortgage
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500morgageWiktionary, English mortgage‘a mortgage’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1815mortgageWiktionary, English mortgage. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1815, Walter Scott, Guy Mannering: “The appriser, therefore, (as the holder of a mortgage…”

The story

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).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Old French mort gage

Today it means

noun A legal agreement in which a borrower pledges real property as collateral for a loan used to purchase or refinance that property.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “mortgage”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Old French mort gage / mortgage

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