Lien

How to spell lien

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce lien

What does lien mean?

1. nounA legal right to keep or sell another person's property as security until a debt owed by that person is paid.

Lien in a sentence

• The contractor placed a lien on the house until the builders were paid.

• The bank holds a lien against the car until the loan is cleared.

Where does lien come from?

Language of origin: French

This word entered English in the seventeenth century from French, where lien meant 'a bond' or 'a tie', the kind of connection that links one thing to another. The French word descends directly from the Latin ligamen, meaning 'a band' or 'a fastening', which itself was built on the verb ligare, 'to bind' or 'to tie'. The legal sense fits that image neatly: a lien is a binding claim that ties a creditor to a debtor's property until a debt is paid. That same Latin ligare quietly survives in a family of English relatives, including 'ligament' (the band that ties bones together), 'ligature', 'oblige', and even 'ally'. Because the spelling keeps the French shape rather than the way it is spoken, English writers often trip over it, sliding it toward the unrelated everyday word 'lean'.

How the word is built

• lien (from French lien 'a bond or tie', ultimately from Latin ligare: to bind)

Words that sound like lien

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• lean: To bend or incline the body or an object so it rests at an angle or against a support.