Liability

How to spell liability

9 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce liability

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does liability mean?

1. nounA debt, financial obligation, or legal responsibility that a person or organisation is bound to settle.
2. nounA person or thing that causes trouble or puts someone at a disadvantage.

Liability in a sentence

• The company listed every liability on its annual balance sheet.

• His short temper became a real liability during tense negotiations.

• The contract limits the builder's liability for any later defects.

• The ageing delivery van turned into a costly liability for the small shop.

Where does liability come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word grows out of 'liable', which English took from the Anglo-French and Old French verb 'lier', meaning 'to bind', itself descended from the Latin 'ligare', 'to tie or bind'. Something you are liable for is, quite literally, something you are bound to do or pay. The abstract noun 'liability' was assembled in English in the early eighteenth century by adding the suffix '-ity', which turns an adjective into the name of a state or quality, so it names the condition of being bound or answerable. The same Latin 'ligare' quietly underlies a family of everyday words such as 'ligament' (the tissue that binds a joint) and 'oblige' (to bind someone by duty), which is a handy memory hook for the 'li' at the start. The spelling trap sits in that calm string of weak vowels in the middle, 'li-a-bil-i-ty', where the unstressed sounds give no clue to the letters, so writers must remember the '-bil-' from 'liable' rather than trust the ear.

How the word is built

• liab- (from liable, via Old French lier 'to bind', from Latin ligare 'to bind')
• -ity (noun-forming suffix meaning 'state or quality')