# liar

Pronunciation: US say "LY-ur" /ˈlaɪ.ɚ/; UK say "LY-uh" /ˈlaɪ.ə/

## Noun

1. Someone who tells lies, whether out of habit or on one particular occasion.
   - Simple: A person who tells lies, saying things they know are not true.
   - _The witness was exposed as a liar when the security footage contradicted her story._
   - _He may be many things, but he has never been a liar._

## Noun

2. On old sailing ships, a sailor who served under the swabber and scrubbed the outside of the vessel, a post held for a week by the first man caught lying on Monday morning. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: On old ships, the sailor who cleaned the outside of the ship, a job for whoever was caught lying.

## Origin

Old English had lēgere or lēogere (“liar, false witness, hypocrite”), which became Middle English lier or liere. It goes back to Proto-Germanic *leugārijaz (“liar”), made from *leuganą (“to lie”) plus *-ārijaz, so in English terms it is lie + -ar.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/liar (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).