liability
[lahy-uh-bil-i-tee]
- liabilities,
- moneys owed; debts or pecuniary obligations (opposed to assets).
- Accounting.liabilities as detailed on a balance sheet, especially in relation to assets and capital.
- something disadvantageous: His lack of education is his biggest liability.
- Also li·a·ble·ness. the state or quality of being liable: liability to disease.
Show More
Origin of liability
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for liabilities
Contemporary Examples
That means insurers are involved in assessing both the liabilities involved in the airplane itself and of the airline.
LS Fashion Limited is fully able to meet the company's liabilities and pay all suppliers and customers.
Bush has the liabilities everyone knows—his last name, mostly, and that fire-in-the-belly business.
The liabilities are there and if you want to take them, go for it.
If the outcome is that they do reduce some of these liabilities, that could be an incentive for the filing.
Historical Examples
If arrested, they can have no claim to exemption from the liabilities of criminals.
The Works of Whittier, Volume VII (of VII)John Greenleaf Whittier
Its liabilities were small, it was merely in want of ready-money.
The Fortune of the RougonsEmile Zola
The most intangible of assets and the most unescapable of liabilities.
RopeHolworthy Hall
The liabilities thus frankly stated, let us turn to the assets.
The Legacy of GreeceVarious
How was he to pay up the liabilities of his bank shares from his dwindling practice?
A Houseful of GirlsSarah Tytler
liabilities
- accounting business obligations incurred but not discharged and entered as claims on the assets shown on the balance sheetCompare assets (def. 1)
Show More
liability
- the state of being liable
- a financial obligation
- a hindrance or disadvantage
- likelihood or probability
Show More
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for liabilities
liability
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
liability
An obligation or debt.
Show More
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.