mortgage
/ˈmɔː.ɡɪd͡ʒ/
"mortgage" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mortgage” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,705 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,705
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A legal agreement in which a borrower pledges real property as collateral for a loan used to purchase or refinance that property.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mortgage |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɔː.ɡɪd͡ʒ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #3,705 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mortgage” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for mortgage is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɔː.ɡɪd͡ʒ/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,705 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for mortgage, with forms such as "mmortgage", "morgtage", and "morrtgage". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "montage", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 … The correct English form is mortgage, spelled M-O-R-T-G-A-G-E.
Definition
- 1A legal agreement in which a borrower pledges real property as collateral for a loan used to purchase or refinance that property.
- 2The state of being pledged.
Etymology
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).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: mmortgage,morgtage,morrtgage,mortagge,mortgaeg,mortgagge,mortggae,mortggage,morttgage,motrgage,mrotgage,omrtgage
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mortgage - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "mortgage"?
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Using “mortgage”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-O-R-T-G-A-G-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmɔː.ɡɪd͡ʒ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “montage” - see the side-by-side comparison. mortgage vs montage
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.