mortgage

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A legal agreement in which a borrower pledges real property as collateral for a loan used to purchase or refinance that property.

   “The appriser, therefore, (as the holder of a mortgage was then called,) entered upon possession, and in the language of Hotspur, "came me cranking in," and cut the family out of another monstrous cantle of their remaining property.”

2. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)The state of being pledged.

   “lands given in mortgage”

verb

1. (transitive)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; to pledge a property in order to get a loan.

   “to mortgage a property, an estate, or a shop”

   “We mortgaged our house in order to start a company.”

2. (figuratively, transitive)To pledge and make liable; to make subject to obligation; to achieve an immediate result by paying for it in the long term.

   “She mortgaged her future for the pleasures of the relationship with the sculptor, a relationship she knew would be short.”

   “Like a latter-day Faustus who has mortgaged his soul to the pursuit of his art, Harrison now desperately craves the paternal love from which his learning has estranged him.”