mortmain
Pronunciation Noun
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.002
Pronunciation Noun
mortmain (uncountable)
- (legal) 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 […]
- 1824, Charter of Incorporation of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland,
- (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, […]
- 1770, Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches,
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.002