general lien
- noun
- /ˈdʒɛnərəl liːn/
- Formal
:
embargo general
- A bank may claim a general lien on a customer's assets for unpaid debts.
Examples
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Unlike a particular lien, a general lien covers all the debtor's property, not just specific items.
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The creditor exercised a general lien over all the goods stored in the warehouse.
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The bank has a general lien on all the assets of the borrower.
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Does this general lien cover personal property as well?
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The creditor exercised a general lien over all the goods stored in the warehouse.
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A bank may claim a general lien on a customer's assets for unpaid debts.
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The bank has a general lien on all the assets of the borrower.
Synonyms
30
9.4
A legal right to keep someone's property until they pay a debt
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built from 'general' (broad) + 'lien' (a legal right to retain property), so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a lien of wide scope covering many or all assets. However, the precise legal nuance — that it allows retention of all a debtor's property as security for a general balance of accounts rather than specific assets — is technical and not fully predictable at B1, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
General lien comes from the simple idea of holding someone's goods as 'security' until a debt is paid. Imagine a banker or shopkeeper keeping all of a customer's things and refusing to give any back until the bill is paid. Because it can cover 'all' items it is called general, and lien is the right to hold them, so the phrase means the right to keep all of a person's things as 'security' for a debt.