liar
Americannoun
-
liars
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of liar
before 950; Middle English lier, Old English lēogere. See lie 1, -ar 1
Explanation
A liar is someone who doesn't tell the truth. A liar tells lies. "Liar, liar, pants on fire," a phrase of unknown origin, is a children's jump-rope rhyme also used as a playground taunt. Adults, and especially political commentators, have also been known to use the phrase or part of it as a particularly demeaning insult aimed at politicians who make outrageous claims that can't possibly be true. Notice that liar ends in -ar, not -er, as you might expect.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Refrain from calling her a pathological liar, even if just to yourself, as that will color your response to her.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 29, 2026
In an interview with The Times earlier this month, Arday admitted making academic "mistakes" but said he was being wrongly "portrayed to be a liar and a fantasist and an academic fraud".
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
The officers also suggested in the D.A.’s motion Flores was a habitual liar.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
His problem is that he’s a liar and a jerk.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
That was the same as calling my own mother a liar.
From "P.S. Be Eleven" by Rita Williams-Garcia
I do think she’s calling the supermajority liars.
From Slate ● Jun. 3, 2026
Ms. Adelman describes how Lewis’s specimens fell into the hands of a series of botanists—some of them charlatans, drunkards, liars or thieves—who squandered his legacy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
"Myself and a number of the other men who were involved in the safeguarding were referred to as Satanists, we were called liars and we were called rebels," Doone said.
From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2026
Navy attack on an alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling boat, and almost certain liars for their accounts of the incident.
From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2025
The investigators, meantime, saw the Shaws as meddling liars.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
