mortmain – מילון אנגלי-אנגלי
mortmain
n.
frozen assets; non-transferrable ownership
Mortmain
Mortmain is the perpetual, inalienable ownership of
real estate by a
corporation or legal institution; the term is usually used in the context of its prohibition. Historically, the land owner usually would be the religious office of a church; today, insofar as mortmain prohibitions against perpetual ownership still exist, it refers most often to modern
companies and
charitable trusts. The term "mortmain" is derived from
Mediaeval Latin mortua manus, literally "dead hand", through
Old French morte main.
mortmain
Noun
1. real property held inalienably (as by an ecclesiastical corporation)
(synonym) dead hand
(hypernym) real property, real estate, realty
(classification) corporation, corp
2. the oppressive influence of past events of decisions
(synonym) dead hand, dead hand of the past
(hypernym) influence
Mortmain
(n.)
Possession of lands or tenements in, or conveyance to, dead hands, or hands that cannot alienate.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), edited by Noah Porter.
About
Mortmain
An unlawful alienation of lands, or tenements to any corporation, sole or aggregate, ecclesiastical or temporal. These purchases having been chiefly made by religious houses, in consequence of which lands became perpetually inherent in one dead hand, this has occasioned the general appellation of mortmain to be applied to such alienations.
Mortmain is also employed to designate all prohibitory laws, which limit, restrain, or annul gifts, grants, or devises of lands and other corporeal hereditaments to charitable uses.
This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.
