Sample Sentences for
liability
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

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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    "I think," I said stiffly, "that I am more of an asset than a liability."  (source)
    liability = someone who creates a problem
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    Apparently, a Capitol pedigree is no protection here. Maybe it's even a liability.  (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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    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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    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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    Minho was a liability.  (source)
    liability = someone who creates a problem
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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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    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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    John Carroll is a Southern gentleman whose integrity and high standards have become liabilities.  (source)
    liabilities = things that cause problems
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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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    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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    In his will he writes that you have a good knowledge of his assets and liabilities.  (source)
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    The liabilities would be ….  (source)
    liabilities = financial obligations
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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)
    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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    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)
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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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    Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed.†  (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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    Two years earlier, his firm had spent $200,000 on a product liability case, and lost.  (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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    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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    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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    We allege criminal misconduct; we shout about antitrust; we sue for ancient and dubious liabilities.  (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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    The immunity from civil liability given to prosecutors and judges is even greater than the protections provided to law enforcement officers.  (source)
    liability = legal responsibility (permitting lawsuits)
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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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    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)
    liability = legal responsibility (that can result in lawsuits)
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    And he will have more personal liability than the governors of Massachusetts and Delaware.  (source)
    liability = legal obligation or responsibility
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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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