lien

¹ American  

[leen, lee-uhn] / lin, ˈli ən /

noun

1. Law. the legal claim of one person upon the property of another person to secure the payment of a debt or the satisfaction of an obligation.

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lien ² American  

[lahy-uhn, -en] / ˈlaɪ ən, -ɛn /

noun

Anatomy.

1. the spleen.

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lien British  

/ ˈliːən, liːn /

noun

1. law a right to retain possession of another's property pending discharge of a debt

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lien Cultural  

1. A claim or right given to a creditor to secure payment of a debt, usually by sale of the debtor's property.

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Other Word Forms

• lienable
  adjective
• lienal
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of lien¹

First recorded in 1525–35; from Anglo-French, Old French, from Latin ligāmen “tie, bandage,” from ligā(re) “to tie” + -men, noun suffix of result; cf. ligament ( def. )

Origin of lien²

First recorded in 1645–55; from Latin liēn; see also spleen

Explanation

A lien is a claim against the property of someone who owes money. It's pronounced like "lean," which might also describe your meager finances if a lien has been placed on your home. When someone doesn't make payments on a loan, the bank may put a lien on that person's property, claiming ownership of that property until the overdue payment is received. The word lien derives from the Latin ligāre, which means "to bind," and you can see that "binding," or tying up a person's property, really does put the owner in a "bind."

Example Sentences

A turning point came in 2005 when then-KMT chairman Lien Chan made an "ice-breaking" visit to Beijing to meet then-Chinese President Hu Jintao.

From Barron's • Apr. 7, 2026

Also, the inventive, nonliteral staging by director Zack Winokur, choreographer Pam Tanowitz, co-set designers Mimi Lien and Jack Forman and lighting designer John Torres is astonishing to look at but not always intelligible.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 22, 2025

Owner Lien Ta told The Times that the restaurant simply didn’t make enough money on a day-to-day basis to sustain operations.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 31, 2024

He worked in London for a while before settling in France, where he met his Vietnamese wife Yolande Ngo Thi Hoang Lien.

From BBC • Nov. 24, 2024

Three of the daughters, Lien, Mien, and Johanna, play the piano.

From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman