A legal arrangement where property is given as security for a debt, and the creditor has the right to use or receive income from the property until the debt is repaid.
From Greek 'antichrésis' (use in place of), combining 'anti-' (in place of) and 'chresis' (use). The term was adopted into Latin legal terminology and passed into English through legal and financial texts.
This obscure legal term reveals that before modern banks existed, creative property arrangements were the only way people could secure loans—it's basically medieval crowd-lending through property ownership.
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