Definition
To foreclose is to bar or shut out a mortgagor's right to reclaim mortgaged property. In its core legal sense, foreclosure is the judicial or statutory process by which a mortgagee (lender) permanently extinguishes the mortgagor's (borrower's) equity of redemption — the right to reclaim the property by paying off the debt — and takes title to or forces a sale of the mortgaged premises.
The term is also used more broadly to mean any legal act of barring, precluding, or cutting off a right or claim. In this general sense, a party may be "foreclosed" from asserting a defense, exercising an option, or pursuing a remedy after the applicable window has closed.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To repossess a mortgaged property whose owner has failed to make the necessary payments; also, to shut out or prevent from doing something.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To shut up or out; to preclude; to stop; to prevent; to bar. In law, to cut off a mortgager by judgment of court from the power of redeeming the mortgaged premises.
The common-language understanding has narrowed almost entirely to the mortgage context and tends to focus on repossession by the lender. The legal definition is more precise: foreclosure does not mean the lender simply takes the property — it means a formal legal process eliminates the mortgagor's equity of redemption, after which title vests or a forced sale occurs. The repossession or sale is the consequence, not the act of foreclosing itself. The broader non-mortgage meaning (barring any right or claim) survives in legal usage but rarely appears in ordinary speech.
Common Confusion
FORECLOSING THE MORTGAGE VS. FORECLOSING THE MORTGAGOR
Historical sources draw a technical distinction: one forecloses the mortgagor (cuts off the person's equity of redemption) or forecloses the equity of redemption (destroys the right itself). The phrase "foreclose the mortgage" — meaning to act against the instrument — was noted even in Webster's 1913 as not technically correct, though it became common usage. Researchers encountering this phrase in older materials should read it as meaning foreclosure of the equity of redemption, not some action taken against the mortgage document itself.
Why It Matters in Research
The term "foreclose" in historical legal sources almost always appears in its mortgage-law sense, and that sense tracks the development of equity of redemption doctrine. Researchers using the Law Mind corpus should be aware of several navigational points.
First, the equity of redemption is the linchpin. To understand what is being foreclosed, a researcher must understand what the equity of redemption is: the mortgagor's right, originating in English courts of equity, to reclaim mortgaged property even after legal title had passed to the mortgagee, by paying the debt. Foreclosure was equity's answer to this equitable right — a process to extinguish it once and for all. Sources that define "foreclose" without explaining the equity of redemption are incomplete.
Second, the process varied significantly over time and across jurisdictions. English chancery practice required a formal court decree (judicial foreclosure). American jurisdictions diverged sharply: some retained judicial foreclosure exclusively, others developed power-of-sale foreclosure (non-judicial, authorized by a clause in the mortgage instrument), and some recognized strict foreclosure (the mortgagee simply takes title without a sale). The word "foreclose" in a 19th-century American source does not tell you which of these processes was used.
Third, the general (non-mortgage) use of "foreclose" — meaning to bar any right or claim — appears in older case law and pleading practice and can be confused with the specific mortgage-law process. When encountering "foreclosed from asserting" or similar constructions in historical sources, read the context carefully.
Fourth, Black's 1st edition entry for "foreclose" is notably thin — "To shut out; to bar" with no further exposition — and the surrounding text in the corpus is actually from unrelated entries (Foreign Answer, Foreign Apposer). Researchers should not treat Black's 1st as an authoritative source on foreclosure procedure; Bouvier's and Burrill's provide more useful starting points for historical doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five shelf sources converge on the core definition but vary in depth. All agree that "foreclose" means to shut out or bar, and all connect it to the destruction of the equity of redemption. Burrill's is the most complete, tracing the term to the Law French forclorer and citing both institutional authority (Inst. 298) and chancery practice sources. Bouvier's similarly links the term to the equity of redemption and cites Washburn's Real Property and Coote on Mortgages. Black's 2nd edition is nearly identical to Bouvier's in its formulation: "the process of destroying an equity of redemption existing in a mortgagor."
Rapalje & Lawrence's corpus entry, as it appears in the source material, does not contain a direct definition of "foreclose" — the surrounding text addresses forcible detainer — suggesting the entry was either minimal or the relevant passage was not captured. This is a gap researchers should note when relying on Rapalje & Lawrence for mortgage terminology.
None of the historical dictionaries address procedural variants (judicial vs. non-judicial, power-of-sale, strict foreclosure) in their definitions of "foreclose" itself. These distinctions lived in treatises and case law, not dictionary entries. Washburn's Real Property, Coote on Mortgages, and Daniell's Chancery Practice (cited by Burrill's and Bouvier's) are the primary treatise authorities the shelf sources point toward for procedural depth.
Jurisdictional Note
Foreclosure procedure varies substantially across American jurisdictions and has varied historically. Judicial foreclosure (requiring court action) is or was required in many states; non-judicial power-of-sale foreclosure is available in others. A small number of jurisdictions recognized strict foreclosure. Federal law (including the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and various bankruptcy provisions) imposes additional constraints. The historical legal dictionary definitions do not reflect these variations; they describe the equitable core of the concept, not the procedural landscape any given jurisdiction applies.