Other forms: liaisons
A liaison is communication kept up between groups, or a love affair. A liaison officer, close liaison, a secret liaison.
The official sense is neutral and the romantic one is not — a liaison in that sense is always irregular, never a marriage. In French cooking, liaison means thickening a sauce, which is the original: the Latin means a binding.
1nounliaisonCommunication kept up between groups.
“She acts as liaison between the school and the parents.”
2nounloveA love affair.
“The minister's secret liaison with his assistant ended his career.”
liaison is a link, or an affair.
The Latin is to bind. A liaison binds two sides together, whether it is two offices working together or two people in secret.
hooks ontobind
French liaison means a binding, from lier, to bind, from Latin ligare. Ligament and ally are relatives.
Proto-Indo-European
*leyǵ- — to bind
Latin
ligātiō
French
liaison — binding
English, today
liaison
Built from
French liaison (“binding”), from Latin ligātiō (stem ligātiōn-; whence the English a doublet of ligation), derived from ligō (“to bind”), from Proto-Indo-European leyǵ- (“to bind”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA