plea

Pluralpleas

Formspleas, pleaing, pleaed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An earnest appeal or request, often urgent, asking someone for help, mercy, or support.

   The charity's plea for donations drew an overwhelming response.

   He ignored every plea to slow down and take a rest.

   Similarappeal, request, entreaty, petition, call

   Note

   The everyday sense is a long way from the word's beginnings. Middle English ple came through Old French from Medieval Latin placitum, a decree or suit, literally "that which is pleasing", from placere "to please". In use it usually takes for: a plea for mercy, a plea for help. One makes a plea, and the person who receives it answers or ignores it.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A statement or claim put forward by a party in a legal case to support their position.

   Counsel's plea laid out every fact that supported the company's claim.

   The court weighed each plea offered in support of the rival claims.

   Similarsubmission, argument, statement, claim

   Note

   Law's broadest use of the word covers anything a party formally asserts to support its side, as part of the allegations exchanged before trial. Either side can advance one. The narrower technical meanings, the allegation of fact and the defendant's formal answer, are refinements of this general one.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   The defendant's formal answer to the plaintiff's declaration and demand in a lawsuit.

   The defendant's plea responded point by point to the plaintiff's demand.

   His plea admitted the debt but disputed the amount owed.

   Similaranswer, defense

   Note

   In common-law procedure, each stage of the written exchange had its own name, and the defendant's reply to the plaintiff's declaration was the plea. It could deny what the declaration alleged. It could also bring in new matter that answered the demand, for example admitting a debt while disputing the amount.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An excuse or apology offered to explain or justify one's actions.

   He muttered some plea about traffic to excuse his lateness.

   Her only plea was that she hadn't understood the instructions.

   Similarexcuse, justification, pretext, defense

   Note

   Here the plea is offered rather than begged. It is the reason put forward to excuse what has been done, unlike the appeal sense. Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) gives it its sharpest form: "Necessity, the tyrant's plea", the excuse power reaches for. Sir John Denham's The Sophy (1668) shows the refusal side: "No Plea must serve", meaning no excuse will be accepted.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   Something alleged or argued in one's defense or to justify an action.

   The accused offered necessity as his plea, claiming he had no other choice.

   Their plea rested on the argument that the rules themselves were unfair.

   Similardefense, justification, argument

6. 6
   nouncountable

   An allegation of fact in a legal case, as distinguished from a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the opposing claim.

   Counsel entered a plea asserting that the goods had been delivered on time.

   Rather than demurring, she filed a plea disputing the facts of the case.

   Note

   Common-law pleading drew a sharp line at this point. A plea meets the opponent's case on the facts, asserting or denying what happened. A demurrer admits the facts and argues that, even so, they do not amount to a legal claim. Choosing between them meant choosing whether to fight the story or the law.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A cause or suit brought before a court, as preserved in the name Court of Common Pleas.

   The plea between the two landowners was transferred to a higher court.

   Civil pleas of this kind were once heard separately from criminal matters.

   Similarsuit, case, lawsuit, action

   Note

   Legal English once used the word for the suit itself, not just for something said within it. An Act establishing a Supreme Judicial Court within the Commonwealth (1782) gives its court cognizance of "pleas real, personal, and mixed". The sense survives in the Court of Common Pleas, a court that historically heard civil actions between private parties.

8. 8
   verbdialectalEnglandScotlandtransitive or intransitive

   To plead or argue, as in presenting a cause before others.

   The villagers came to plea their cause before the laird.

   Each spring the tenants plea for lower rents on their plots.

   Similarplead, argue, press, petition, beg

   Note

   A dialect verb found in Scotland and regional England, where standard English says plead. It conjugates regularly: pleas, pleaing, pleaed. James Hogg uses it in The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), writing of property "for which I had pleaed". Outside Scots or dialect writing, plea used as a verb will read as a slip for plead.

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