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PLEADING
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(law) a statement in legal and logical form stating something on behalf of a party to a legal proceeding
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("pleading" is a kind of...):
statement (a message that is stated or declared; a communication (oral or written) setting forth particulars or facts etc)
Meronyms (parts of "pleading"):
bill of Particulars (the particular events to be dealt with in a criminal trial; advises the defendant and the court of the facts the defendant will be required to meet)
Domain category:
jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pleading"):
affirmative pleading (any defensive pleading that affirms facts rather than merely denying the facts alleged by the plaintiff)
alternative pleading; pleading in the alternative (a pleading that alleges facts so separate that it is difficult to determine which facts the person intends to rely on)
answer (the principal pleading by the defendant in response to plaintiff's complaint; in criminal law it consists of the defendant's plea of 'guilty' or 'not guilty' (or nolo contendere); in civil law it must contain denials of all allegations in the plaintiff's complaint that the defendant hopes to controvert and it can contain affirmative defenses or counterclaims)
charge; complaint ((criminal law) a pleading describing some wrong or offense)
complaint ((civil law) the first pleading of the plaintiff setting out the facts on which the claim for relief is based)
defective pleading (any pleading that fails to conform in form or substance to minimum standards of accuracy or sufficiency)
demurrer ((law) any pleading that attacks the legal sufficiency of the opponent's pleadings)
rebuttal; rebutter ((law) a pleading by the defendant in reply to a plaintiff's surrejoinder)
replication ((law) a pleading made by a plaintiff in reply to the defendant's plea or answer)
rejoinder ((law) a pleading made by a defendant in response to the plaintiff's replication)
special pleading ((law) a pleading that alleges new facts in avoidance of the opposing allegations)
surrebuttal; surrebutter ((law) a pleading by the plaintiff in reply to the defendant's rebutter)
surrejoinder ((law) a pleading by the plaintiff in reply to the defendant's rejoinder)
Derivation:
plead (enter a plea, as in courts of law)
plead (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)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Begging
Synonyms:
beseeching; imploring; pleading
Classified under:
Similar:
adjuratory (earnestly or solemnly entreating)
importunate (expressing persistant and earnest entreaty)
mendicant (practicing beggary)
petitionary (of the nature of or expressing a petition)
precative; precatory (expressing entreaty or supplication)
suppliant; supplicant; supplicatory (humbly entreating)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb plead
Context examples:
I may not have used it to the best account; I was young and inexperienced; but I never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She ordered it during Mercury retrograde however, despite my pleading to wait. (Diana is my little Aries, always testing me—I do love that about her, and Aries, in general.) She said she needed it.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
He was still in the strait-waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading—I might almost say, "cringing"—softness.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
In pleading, they studiously avoid entering into the merits of the cause; but are loud, violent, and tedious, in dwelling upon all circumstances which are not to the purpose.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Toward the end of the letter he was God's own lover pleading passionately for love.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He was begging, pleading, imploring for his comrade's life.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
His pleadings usually culminated in involuntary raving, until it seemed to her that he was passing into a fit; but always she shook her head and denied him the freedom for which he worked himself into a passion.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Sometimes, indeed, I have thought you were half suspecting me of pleading poor Martin's cause, which was never the case; but, from all my observations, I am convinced of her being an artless, amiable girl, with very good notions, very seriously good principles, and placing her happiness in the affections and utility of domestic life.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Whether those pleading orators were persons educated in the general knowledge of equity, or only in provincial, national, and other local customs?
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
