plead

/plid/

/plid/

Other forms: pleaded; pleading; pleads; pled

To plead with someone is to try to convince them to see it your way. Your kids may plead with you to let them go on the super-huge outrageous roller coaster built in 1968, but you know better.

The term plead comes from the word plea, which is from the legal system, where lawyers make a plea to the court and argue a case for their client. To plead is to ask for something from someone, often on the verge of begging. You may plead with the phone company to give an appointment time that spans only three hours, but, regardless of your pleading, they will make you wait eight hours for the technician to finally show.

Definitions of plead

1. verb

   appeal or request earnestly
   “I pleaded with him to stop”

   types:

   beg, implore, pray

   call upon in supplication; entreat

   adjure, beseech, bid, conjure, entreat, press

   ask for or request earnestly

   crave

   plead or ask for earnestly

   supplicate

   ask humbly (for something)

   importune, insist

   beg persistently and urgently

   type of:

   appeal, invoke

   request earnestly (something from somebody); ask for aid or protection
2. verb

   offer as an excuse or plea
   “She was pleading insanity”

   type of:

   apologise, apologize, excuse, justify, rationalise, rationalize

   defend, explain, clear away, or make excuses for by reasoning
3. verb

   enter a plea, as in courts of law
   “She pleaded not guilty”

   type of:

   declare

   state emphatically and authoritatively
4. verb

   make an allegation in an action or other legal proceeding, especially answer the previous pleading of the other party by denying facts therein stated or by alleging new facts
   types:

   demur

   enter a demurrer

   type of:

   allege, aver, say

   report or maintain