bottomry

bottom +‎ -ry; see bottom (“hull”).

bottomry (plural bottomries)

1. (nautical) An early form of maritime contract in which owner of a ship could borrow money using the ship as collateral.
   • 1996, Susan Hodges, Law Of Marine Insurance‎, page 19:

     Section 10 states that, ‘The lender of money on bottomry and respondentia has an insurable interest in respect of the loan’. A lender on ‘bottomry’ is, as its name suggests, a person who advances money to a shipowner on the security of (the bottom [of]) the ship.

   • 1999 [1880], John Bouvier, Daniel A. Gleason, Institutes of American Law, Volume 1, New Edition, page 309,

     There is much resemblance between bottomry and insurance. In one, the lender takes the risks, and in the other, the insurer. […] If these contracts resemble each other, there are also many differences between them. In bottomry, the lender actually furnishes a certain sum of money; in insurance, the insurer furnishes nothing; on the contrary, he receives a premium, which is frequently paid to him at the time of the agreement, but which when it is not paid in cash is a claim which he may assign, or for which he may procure a guaranty.

   • 2005, Paul Arthur Van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life And Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845, footnote, page 225,

     25. The supercargo Colin Campbell, for example, mentioned in 1732 that the first Dutch supercargo Schultz was secretly investing in the bottomry market.

• respondentia