hypothecate
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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to pledge to a creditor as security without delivering over; mortgage.
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to put in pledge by delivery, as stocks given as security for a loan.
verb (used with or without object)
verb
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(tr) law to pledge (personal property or a ship) as security for a debt without transferring possession or title
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to allocate the revenue raised by a tax for a specified purpose See also bottomry
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hypothecate1
1675–85; < Medieval Latin hypothēcātus, past participle of hypothēcāre. See hypothec, -ate 1
Origin of hypothecate2
First recorded in 1905–10; from Greek hypothḗk(ē) “suggestion, counsel” (from hypotithénai “to assume, suppose”; see hypo- ( def. ), thesis ( def. )) + -ate 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But previous attempts to "hypothecate" - or earmark - National Insurance contributions for specific public services have been abandoned.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2024
If they had no property real or personal to hypothecate, they could borrow on their personal credit only from usurers, who charged 20% and more interest.
From Time Magazine Archive
She would get Carmen to hypothecate her own interest in this new company, if necessary.
From Carmen Ariza by Charles Francis Stocking
True: she had mentioned some personal jewellery she planned to hypothecate.
From The Lone Wolf A Melodrama by Louis Joseph Vance
Then you hypothecate your stock in company number one, and you have your dummy directors lend you more money, and you buy another trust company.
From The Moneychangers by Upton Sinclair
He also called for a specific chunk of taxes raised to be "hypothecated" - earmarked - for the NHS, which he said was "in a state of profound crisis".
From BBC ● Mar. 2, 2017
Others tout a hypothecated tax, perhaps giving national-insurance contributions to the NHS.
From Economist ● Nov. 19, 2015
To raise immediate cash, he had already hypothecated these two historic Rembrandts, smuggled out of Soviet Russia in a manner still unexplained, for the admittedly inadequate sum of 45,000 pounds sterling.
From Time Magazine Archive
According to Mr. Dewey, in 1932, 1937 and 1938 Dick Whitney hypothecated its securities for loans of $100,000, $100,000 and $400,000.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Government's pardon, on which this fine rapidity was hypothecated, came promptly—"through a pardon broker," said Garnet.
From John March, Southerner by George W. Cable
The U. S. Department of Labor was considering the possibility of hypothecating its German-Austrian immigration quota for the next three years to admit up to 81,000 refugees into the country.
From Time Magazine Archive
Mr. Lincoln went into the reasons which appeared to him to render this plan preferable to that of hypothecating the State bonds.
From The Writings of Abraham Lincoln — Volume 1: 1832-1843 by Abraham Lincoln
"It seems to have been a case," went on the detective unhurriedly, "of dropping down the scale for her until she was up against the question of diving into East River—or hypothecating the one asset."
From The Tyranny of Weakness by Paul Stahr
The Don would likely have provided him with the money, and he would have done it by hypothecating more of the Delcasar lands to MacDougall.
From The Blood of the Conquerors by Harvey Fergusson
He's rather desperate as a result, and has been trying to borrow money by hypothecating the inheritance due him on his twenty-fifth birthday.
From Cappy Ricks Retires by Peter B. (Peter Bernard) Kyne
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
