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

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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

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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

See Examples For:

lien

In July, it won court approval to place a lien on fees airlines pay to access the countries’ airspace.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026

Nevertheless, keeping a creditworthy borrower in a home through a sustainable modification and resolving the arrearage through a subordinate lien can be dramatically less costly than allowing the loan to fail.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026

Both were receiving Medicaid, and there will be a Medicaid estate-recovery lien against the house, in addition to an existing mortgage.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026

Prosecutors say he falsified title insurance policies that showed the bank would have a first lien on the underlying collateral if the loan went bad, when in fact it did not.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026

But, while individual rights were thus far recognized, the claims of the tribe and of relationship were so strong as to constitute a lien upon all individual property.

From The Fijians A Study of the Decay of Custom by Basil Thomson

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