MORT'MAIN, noun In law, possession of lands or tenements in dead hands, or hands that cannot alienate. Alienation in mortmain is an alienation of lands or tenements to any corporation, sole or aggregate, ecclesiastical or temporal, particularly to religious houses, by which the estate becomes perpetually inherent in the corporation and unalienable.
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Webster's Dictionary 1828
American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster, 1828.