Engaging in bottomry; mortgaging a ship or cargo to secure a maritime loan.
From 'bottomry' (noun) converted to a verb with the '-ing' suffix, used in historical maritime and legal documents to describe the act of pledging vessels as security.
Medieval merchants bottomrying their ships were essentially the venture capitalists of their era—they risked total loss but gained the capital for profitable trading expeditions to Asia and the New World.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.