Meaning & use
liability
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Meanings
noununcountablelegal
The state of being legally required to pay for harm or a debt, or to answer for something that went wrong.
Grammar: Usually uncountable and often followed by for: liability for the damage.
Patterns
- liability for something
- accept liability
- limit your liability
The company denied liability for the crash.
Under the contract, the tenant has no liability for normal wear and tear.
Insurance covers your liability if a guest is injured at your home.
nounusually pluralfinancebusiness
An amount of money that a person or business owes, listed as a debt.
Grammar: Often plural in accounting: assets minus liabilities.
Patterns
- current liabilities
- assets and liabilities
The firm's liabilities now exceed its assets.
Mortgage payments are the family's largest liability.
Long-term liabilities are shown on a separate line of the balance sheet.
nouncountableinformal
A person or thing that causes problems or puts others at a disadvantage.
Grammar: Countable and often used with 'a': he is a liability to the team.
Patterns
- be a liability to someone
- become a liability
After the third injury, the aging striker became a liability to the club.
An unlocked back door is a security liability.
She felt like a liability on the hike because of her sore knee.
Word forms
| plural | liabilities |
|---|
Common combinations
- accept liability
- The builder refused to accept liability for the leak.
- limited liability
- Shareholders in a limited liability company risk only what they invested.
- legal liability
- Doctors carry insurance against legal liability.
- current liabilities
- Current liabilities are debts due within a year.
- a political liability
- His careless remarks made him a political liability.
- liability insurance
- Drivers must carry liability insurance in most states.
Synonyms and how they differ
- responsibility
- Responsibility is broader and can be moral or practical, while liability usually points to legal or financial blame.
- debt
- Debt is specifically money owed, whereas liability can also mean legal accountability or a general burden.
- burden
- Burden stresses the weight or hardship something causes and has no legal sense.
- handicap
- Handicap suggests a disadvantage that holds someone back, while a liability in the third sense actively risks harm to others.
Opposites
Word family
- liable adjective
- legally responsible, or likely to do something
- liably adverb
- rare; in a liable manner
- nonliability noun
- the absence of legal responsibility
- liabilities noun
- debts or obligations, plural form
Commonly confused: liability or libel? liability or liable?
liability vs libel
Libel is a written false statement that damages someone's reputation. Liability is legal responsibility, and the two are only linked when libel leads to a claim.
liability vs liable
Liable is the adjective ('liable for damages'), whereas liability is the noun ('accept liability').
Practice
A company's debts and unpaid bills are listed on its balance sheet as its ______.
Choose one answer.
Money a company owes is a liability. Assets are what it owns, so that tempting option is the opposite, and revenues and dividends are income and payouts, not debts.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “liability”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.