TIL the word 'mortgage' literally means 'death pledge' in Old French

Stumbled on that in some random etymology wiki last night while procrastinating. Now every time I send my payment I feel like I'm signing a medieval contract or something, anyone else get weirded out by random word origins?

2 comments

2 Comments

beth_hunt5d agoMost Upvoted

Started looking into this last night too and fell down a rabbit hole about how "salary" comes from the word for salt because Roman soldiers got paid in it. Now I can't look at my paycheck without picturing a little salt shaker on top of it. My coworker thinks I'm losing it because I told him he was worth his weight in salt today.

tarak174d ago

The salt thing is real. Latin "sal" for salt turned into "salarium" for the money soldiers got to buy salt. Pretty wild that your paycheck basically has a history lesson baked into it. Your coworker might not get it, but that's a solid joke honestly.