High-spectral-resolution lidar (HSRL) is a powerful tool for atmospheric aerosol remote sensing. The current HSRL technique often requires a single longitudinal mode laser as the transmitter to accomplish the spectral discrimination of the aerosol and molecular scattering conveniently. However, single-mode laser is cumbersome and has very strict requirements for ambient stability, making the HSRL instrument not so robust in many cases. In this paper, a new HSRL concept, called generalized HSRL technique with a multimode laser (MML-gHSRL), is proposed, which can work using a multimode laser. The MML-gHSRL takes advantage of the period characteristic of the spectral function of the interferometric spectral discrimination filter (ISDF) thoroughly. By matching the free spectral range of the ISDF with the mode interval of the multimode laser, fine spectral discrimination for the lidar return from each longitudinal mode can be realized. Two common ISDFs, i.e., the Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) and field-widened Michelson interferometer (FWMI), are introduced to develop the MML-gHSRL, and their performance is quantitatively analyzed and compared. The MML-gHSRL is a natural but significant generalization for the current HSRL technique based on the IDSF. It is potential that this technique would be a good entrance to future HSRL developments, especially in airborne and satellite-borne aerosol remote sensing applications.