[
UK
/mˈɔːtmeɪn/
]
NOUN
- the oppressive influence of past events or decisions
- real property held inalienably (as by an ecclesiastical corporation)
How To Use mortmain In A Sentence
- Royal licences to acquire property in mortmain allowed for a period of expansion into adjacent properties in the early 14th century.
- mortgage, literally a “dead pledge”; a pledge by which the landowner remained in possession of the property he staked as security. mortmain, a statute restricting the conveyance of land to the “dead hand” of a religious organization oyez, often calqued as hear ye!, The Volokh Conspiracy » The influence of French words in English legal terminology
- a sort of family settlement, grasped as in a kind of mortmain forever. The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12)
- I want us to look like a viable family, Mortmain, for Rose's sake.
- Hospitals and poor houses found the charitable bequests on which they had always relied dwindling, and, as ecclesiastical institutions, they were cut off from further endowments by legislation of 1749 restricting mortmain.
- We meet with other forms of tenure in the partition of land in the days of the French régime -- for instance, _franc aleu noble_ and _franc aumone_ or _mortmain_, but these were exceptional grants to charitable, educational, or religious institutions, and were subject to none of the ordinary obligations of the feudal tenure, but required, as in the latter case, only the performance of certain devotional or other duties which fell within their special sphere. Lord Elgin
- mortmain, a statute restricting the conveyance of land to the “dead hand” of a religious organization oyez, often calqued as hear ye! The Volokh Conspiracy » The influence of French words in English legal terminology
- The "oppressive past influence" sense of both "mortmain" and "dead hand" developed from the idea of the dead exercising posthumous control over their property by dictating how it must be used after they die. Latest Articles
- The windows blocked all sound, and there was nothing audible in this room at all save the faint ticking of a wall clock with mortmain and company engraved on the face in gold. Clockwork Angel
- New laws on mortmain limited the size of donations that might be bequeathed to religious foundations.