Other forms: liabilities, liable
A liability is something you are legally on the hook for — a debt, a duty, a bill that will land whether you like it or not.
It has a second life in everyday speech, where a liability is a person or thing that keeps causing you trouble: he is a liability in defence. That sense is almost the exact opposite of asset, which is the word to hold it against. In business the plural is standard — assets and liabilities — and limited liability means your losses stop at what you put in.
1nounliabilityA debt or legal duty that you must meet.~50%
“The company listed liabilities of four million.”
formal in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
synonyms: debt, obligation
2nouncausesSomebody or something that causes you problems.~5%
“After the third mistake he was a liability.”
informal in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
3nounresponsibilityLegal responsibility for something that went wrong.~45%
“The contract limits their liability to the price paid.”
formal in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 151 sentences found in the wild and placed 140 of them on a sense (11 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Proto-Indo-European
*leyǵ-
Latin
ligo — to bind, to tie
Old French
lier — to bind
English
liable
English, today
liability
From liable + -ity. liable comes from Old French lier (“to bind”), from Latin ligo (“to bind, to tie”). Compare typologically обя́занный, обяза́тельный (akin to вяза́ть).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA