_Bottomry Bonds._--A bottomry bond is a contract of hypothecation by which the owner of a ship, or the master as his agent, borrows money for the use of the ship to meet some emergency, e.g. necessary repairs, and pledges the ship (or keel or bottom of the ship, _partem pro toto_) as security for repayment. If the ship safely accomplishes her voyage, the obligee gets his money back with the agreed interest: if the ship is totally lost, he loses it altogether. _Lloyd's Bonds._--Lloyd's bonds are instruments under the seal of a railway company, admitting the indebtedness of the company to the obligee to a specified amount for work done or goods supplied, with a covenant to pay him such amount with interest on a future day. They are a device by which railway companies were enabled to increase their indebtedness without technically violating their charter. The name is derived from the counsel who settled the form of the bond. _Debenture Bonds._--Debenture bonds are bonds secured only by the covenant of the company without any floating or fixed charge on the assets. (See DEBENTURES AND DEBENTURE STOCK.) _Recognizance._--A recognizance differs from a bond in being entered into before a court of record and thereby becoming an obligation of record. _Heritable bond_ is a Scots law term, meaning a bond for money, joined with a conveyance of land, and held by a creditor as security for his debt. For goods "in bond" see BONDED WAREHOUSE. (E. Ma.) FOOTNOTE: [1] This word, meaning "that which binds," is a phonetic variant of "band," and is derived from the Teutonic root seen in _bindan_, to bind; it must be distinguished from the obsolete "bond," meaning originally a householder. In the laws of Canute this word is used as equal to the Old English _ceorl_ (see CHURL), and thus, as the churl's position became less free after the Norman Conquest, the "bond" approximated to the "villein," and still later to the "serf." The word is in Old English _bonda_, and appears in "husband" (q.v.), and is derived from the root of the verb _bua_, to dwell, to have a house, the Latin _colere_, and thus in origin is cognate with German _Bauer_ and English "boor." The transition in meaning to the idea of serfdom, and hence to slavery, is due to an early confusion with "bond," from "bind." The same wrong connexion appears in the transition of meaning in "bondage," properly "tenure in villeinage," but now used as synonymous with "slavery." A trace of the early meaning still survives in "bondager" (q.v.).