According to it's etymology, the term debit comes from the word debt, which means "the state of owing money.".
Among other meanings, liability is a contractual obligation to deliver cash or another financial asset to another entity. Thus, debt and liability have a very close meaning.
In The interpretation of financial statements (and other resources), the author claims that a debit is either an increase in assets or a decrease in liabilities.
Thus, a debit can be a decrease in liabilities (if not increase in assets). And some times, liabilities are synonymous to debt. The consequent is the following:
"A debit can, among other things, be a decrease in debt". I find this statement confusing in terms of etymology, is it correct?
In contrast, I think that "A debit can, among other things, be an increase in debt" makes more sense as the two words have the same etymological root and should be positively correlated.
