mortgage
mort·gage/ˈmoɹ.ɡɪd͡ʒ/noun, verb
mortgage is spelled M-O-R-T-G-A-G-E, 2 syllables: mort·gage. The wrong spelling people search most is mortage: about 3,300 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 21 of all searches for the word. Mortgage is a noun meaning “A legal agreement in which a borrower pledges real property as collateral for a loan used to purchase or…”. The plural of mortgage is mortgages.
How many letters and syllables are in mortgage?
| Letters | 8: M-O-R-T-G-A-G-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: mort·gage |
| In writing | 25 times per million words; the 3,683rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, mortage, about 3,300 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell mortgage?
Mortgage is spelled M-O-R-T-G-A-G-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 21 of the searches for mortgage in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is mortgage?
Mortgage appears 25 times per million words in written English, the 3,683rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce mortgage?
- UK /ˈmɔːɡɪd͡ʒ/
- British /ˈmoːɡɪd͡ʒ/
- US /ˈmoɹ.ɡɪd͡ʒ/
Mortgage has 2 syllables, split mort·gage in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-mortgage.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of mortgage
- mortgages plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- morgage
- mortgaging participle, present
- mortgaged participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does mortgage mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A legal agreement in which a borrower pledges real property as collateral for a loan used to purchase or refinance that property.
- 2
obsoleteThe state of being pledged.
lands given in mortgage
verb
- 1
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
- 2
To pledge and make liable; to make subject to obligation; to achieve an immediate result by paying for it in the long term.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate mortgage?
Wiktionary records 4 abbreviations of mortgage: Mortg., mtg., mtge, mtge..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Mortgage in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | hypothèque , hypothéquer |
| German | Hypothek , verpfänden, eine Hypothek aufnehmen |
| Portuguese | hipoteca , hipotecar |
| Spanish | hipoteca |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does mortgage come from?
From Middle English morgage and Middle French mortgage, from Anglo-Norman morgage, from Old French mort gage (“dead pledge”), after a translation of judicial Medieval Latin mortuum wadium, with wadium from Frankish *wadi (“wager, pledge”). Compare gage and also wage. 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).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).