mortgage: [14] Mortgage means literally ‘dead pledge’. It comes from Old French mortgage, a compound formed from mort ‘dead’ and gage ‘pledge’ (source of English gage and closely related to English wage). The notion behind the word is supposedly that if the mortgagor fails to repay the loan, the property pledged as security is lost, or becomes ‘dead’, to him or her. => mortal, wage[mortgage etymology, mortgage origin, 英语词源]