Liable means legally responsible for something. Liable for the damage, held liable, jointly liable.
That is the legal sense and the more precise one: if you are liable, you must pay or answer. The second sense is likely to do something, usually something unwanted: liable to break, he is liable to say anything. American English uses it more freely for simple likelihood. Note liability, which means both the legal responsibility and, informally, a person who causes problems — he is a liability.
1adjectiveliableLegally responsible.
“The landlord was held liable for the whole cost.”
2adjectivesufferLikely to do or suffer something.
“The old pipe is liable to burst in the first hard frost.”
liable is a state of responsibility or likelihood.
LIable → the bill LIEs with you
If it goes wrong the bill lies with you, and there is no way out of it.
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Old French lier means to bind, from Latin ligare — the same verb behind ligament, oblige and religion, which may mean binding again. To be liable is to be bound to answer.
Proto-Indo-European
*leyǵ-
Latin
ligo — to bind, to tie
Old French
lier — to bind
English, today
liable
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