means A legal or financial obligation or debt for which you're responsible, or more broadly, anything (or anyone) that creates risk and works against you rather than for you.

from From the verb 'to be liable,' which came through Anglo-French 'lier,' to bind, from Latin 'ligare,' to tie or fasten — the same root that binds 'ligament,' 'oblige,' and 'ally.' The idea is delightfully literal: a liability is something you are tied to, bound to answer for. The '-ability' suffix turned 'liable' into a noun for the state of being so bound — an 18th-century legal coinage that hardened into accounting and corporate dread.