mortmain

WOTD – 15 June 2009

English [edit]

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Mortmain

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

mortmain (plural mortmains)

(law) The perpetual, inalienable possession of lands by a corporation or non-personal entity such as a church.
- 1824, Charter of Incorporation of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland,
  
  [W]e do hereby grant our especial license and authority unto all and every person […] to grant sell alien and convey in mortmain unto and to the use of the said Society and their successors […]
- 1900, Frederic William Maitland, "The Corporation Sole", Law Quarterly Review, v. 16,
  
  Though in truth it was the law of mortmain […] which originally sent the founders of chantries to seek the king's licence […]
(literary) A strong and inalienable possession.
- 1770, Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches,
  
  […] ; 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, […]

inalienable possession of lands