Contextualizebeta

mortmain

noun
/ˈmɔːt.meɪn/UK/ˈmɔɹt.meɪn/US

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman mortmayn, morte meyn, from Old French mortes meins, after Late Latin phrase mortua manus. See Latin mortuus (“dead”) + manus (“hand”).

  1. derived from mortes meins
  2. derived from mortmayn

Definitions

  1. The perpetual, inalienable possession of lands by a corporation or non-personal entity…

    The perpetual, inalienable possession of lands by a corporation or non-personal entity such as a church.

    • Though in truth it was the law of mortmain […] which originally sent the founders of chantries to seek the king's licence […]

  2. A strong and inalienable possession.

    • […]; and some part of that influence [of the government], which would otherwise have been possessed as in a sort of mortmain and unalienable domain, returned again to the great ocean from whence it arose, […]

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for mortmain. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA