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liability
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

liability as in:  she is a liability to our cause

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Her temper is her main liability. She hasn't learned to control angry attacks at anyone who disagrees with her.
liability = negative trait
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    Her speed is an asset, but her short height is a liability for basketball.
    liability = negative trait or thing that creates a problem
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    In part, it was an emotional liability, flaring anger one moment, maudlin sentimentality the next.  (source)
    liability = negative trait
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    When Walt and Billie suggested that he needed a college degree to attain a fulfilling career, Chris answered that careers were demeaning "twentieth-century inventions," more of a liability than an asset, and that he would do fine without one, thank you.  (source)
    liability = something negative
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    Two people in the dark would be a liability if one of them can't see.  (source)
    liability = something that creates a problem
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    And does he imagine that being a virtuous character exposes you to greater or fewer liabilities as you roam the world?  (source)
    liabilities = things that cause problems
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    But I was pathetic, a blundering liability to my own team, always in the way of an opportune pass or unwittingly blocking an open lane.  (source)
    liability = something negative
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    Considering that he has lived through five or six languages, five or six countries, two or three centuries of history; has seen his country, city, and family butchered, bargained with pirates and bureaucrats, eaten filth in order to stay alive; that he has survived every degradation known to this century, considering all those liabilities, isn't it amazing that he can read a Condensed and Simplified for Modern Students edition of A Tale of Two Cities?  (source)
    liabilities = things that create a problem
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    Minho was a liability.  (source)
    liability = someone who creates a problem
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    Nothing about the death of my mother stopped time for my father, prevented him from reckoning his assets and liabilities and spreading himself more widely over the landscape.  (source)
    liabilities = weaknesses
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    Joe had become a liability to Emma's, so he withdrew and took the warehouse space across Bay Street.  (source)
    liability = someone who creates a problem
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    John Carroll is a Southern gentleman whose integrity and high standards have become liabilities.  (source)
    liabilities = things that cause problems
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    Teabing struggled deeply with the decision, but in the end Rémy had proven himself a liability.  (source)
    liability = someone who creates a problem
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    Crisis Doesn't Excuse Liabilities  (source)
    Liabilities = negative traits or things that creates problems
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liability as in:  liabilities on the balance sheet

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    Assets are worth a million dollars, but liabilities exceed that.
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    The liabilities would be ….  (source)
    liabilities = financial obligations
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    In his will he writes that you have a good knowledge of his assets and liabilities.  (source)
    liabilities = debt and other financial obligations
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    She knew every farmer for miles about: how much land he had under cultivation, how many cattle he was feeding, what his liabilities were.  (source)
    liabilities = debt and other financial obligations
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    For me the district institutions simply mean the liability to pay fourpence halfpenny for every three acres, to drive into the town, sleep with bugs, and listen to all sorts of idiocy and loathsomeness, and self-interest offers me no inducement.  (source)
    liability = financial obligation
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    Unexpected liabilities kept on cropping up—and that afflicted fool did not make it any easier.  (source)
    liabilities = debt and other financial obligations
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    "I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his liabilities both," she went on, looking at the wall; "but I never will desert Mr. Micawber!"  (source)
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    The Englishman entered, and found Morrel seated at a table, turning over the formidable columns of his ledger, which contained the list of his liabilities.  (source)
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    Aidid's people had planted explosives in the schoolyard to kill or maim children, preventing them from growing up to be effective fighters—turning them into liabilities.†  (source)
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    It was in limiting those liabilities that the best distinguished themselves from the merely better.†  (source)
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    What are our liabilities?†  (source)
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    It fell to Mike Strank to confront Rene's liabilities and turn this weak link into a useful integer in the chain.†  (source)
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    But in the air, those were liabilities.†  (source)
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liability as in:  legal liability

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The company accepted full liability for the accident.
liability = legal responsibility
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    Liability insurance should cover the financial costs of the accident.
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    Exposing people to liability against the standard of hindsight, however, creates not a safer world but one in which people simply avoid socially useful activities. Obstetricians quit. Seesaws disappear. Businesses stop giving references. The City of New York did, in fact, cut the limbs off trees near playgrounds so children would not be tempted to climb them.  (source)
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    Software companies have never accepted product liability like every other industry.  (source)
    liability = legal obligation or responsibility
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    Our civil suit ran up against laws that give police, prosecutors, and judges special immunity from civil liability in criminal justice matters.  (source)
    liability = legal responsibility
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    If the marriage-wrecking knowledge of my liabilities surfaced before the wedding, I wasn't sure what would happen.  (source)
    liabilities = legal obligations
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    They said that he bad exposed them to liability.  (source)
    liability = legal obligation (that could result in a lawsuit)
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    We allege criminal misconduct; we shout about antitrust; we sue for ancient and dubious liabilities.  (source)
    liabilities = legal obligations
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    She would not like the liability implications, but then again, were there such implications?  (source)
    liability = legal responsibility (that can result in lawsuits)
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    It proved to be a bit more difficult than they had anticipated, because of liability and transportation issues, but they did end up working with a couple of schools from Brooklyn.  (source)
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    A physician violates his duty to his patient and subjects himself to liability if he withholds any facts which are necessary to form the basis of an intelligent consent by the patient to the proposed treatment.  (source)
    liability = legal obligation (that can result in lawsuits)
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    Not a chance, she was told, because of regulatory issues, liability issues, janitorial union issues, and health and safety issues.  (source)
    liability = legal responsibility (that can result in lawsuits)
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    They found the office of the refuge manager at the far end of town and Matt went in and received a permit and signed a liability release.  (source)
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    For years the large meatpacking companies have managed to avoid the sort of liability routinely imposed on the manufacturers of most consumer products.  (source)
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