Law A right to take possession of a debtor’s property as security until a debt or duty is discharged.
[…] every youth movement presents itself as loan to the future, and tries to call in its lien in advance, but when there is no future all loans are canceled.1989, Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces, Faber & Faber, published 2009:
Bodin deemed the king of France's power as absolute in the sense that the ruler was ‘absolved’ by divine sanction from legally binding liens and restrictions.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 7:
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In fact, an 1847 state medical convention in Alambama issued a recommendation that doctors caring for slaves seek liens upon the human chattel if their bills were not paid.2008, Harriet A. Washington, “Southern Discomfort”, in Medical Apartheid, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, page 65:
Li'enal. Pertaining to the lien or spleen; splenic.1892, John Marie Keating, Henry Hamilton, John Chalmers Da Costa, A New Pronouncing Dictionary of Medicine:
The lien or spleen (figs. 282 to 285) is a soft, highly vascular contractile and very elastic organ of a dark purplish colour. It is placed obliquely behind the stomach, …1914, Quain's Elements of Anatomy, volume 1, page 312