Word.ws English Dictionary

lias

UK/ˈliəs/

lias noun: a type of blue limestone present in parts of southern England and Wales. Also the alternative letter-case form of Lias.

Noun (1)

lias (uncountable)

  1. A type of blue limestone present in parts of southern England and Wales.

Proper noun capitalized: Lias

Lias

  1. A stratigraphic group from the lower Jurassic of Western Europe, consisting of thin layers of blue limestone.
  2. (obsolete) The lower Jurassic.
  3. A surname.

Noun (2) capitalized: LIAs

LIAs

  1. (plural) plural of LIA

Also used as

lias is also the alternative letter-case form of Lias.

Origin of lias

Originally dialectal, from Old French liois (“compact limestone”) (French liais), from Medieval Latin liae, plural of lia; doublet of lees (which is via Latin lias). Ultimate origin uncertain, possibly a Celtic word (such as Gaulish *ligyā) from Proto-Celtic *legyā, from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie (down)”). Compare Loire and Leicester.

See lias.

Words formed from lias

Questions about lias

What does lias mean?
Lias means a type of blue limestone present in parts of southern England and Wales.
What part of speech is lias?
Lias can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce lias?
Lias is pronounced /ˈliəs/ (UK).

Words near lias in the dictionary

  1. liar's poker
  2. liard
  3. liards
  4. liarozole
  5. liars
  6. lias
  7. liase
  8. Liasic
  9. liason
  10. liassic
  11. Liasson

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lias (page history and authors); Lias (page history and authors); LIAs (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “lias.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lias. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.