plead
Americanverb (used without object)
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pleads,
present (3rd person singular)
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pleaded,
past participle, past
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pled,
past participle, past
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pleading
present participle
-
to appeal or entreat earnestly.
to plead for time.
- Synonyms:
- supplicate, beg
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to use arguments or persuasions, as with a person, for or against something.
She pleaded with him not to take the job.
- Synonyms:
- reason
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to afford an argument or appeal.
His youth pleads for him.
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Law.
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to make any allegation or plea in an action at law.
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to put forward an answer on the part of a defendant to a legal declaration or charge.
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to address a court as an advocate.
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Obsolete. to prosecute a suit or action at law.
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verb (used with object)
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pleads,
present (3rd person singular)
-
pleaded,
past participle, past
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pled,
past participle, past
-
pleading
present participle
-
to allege or urge in defense, justification, or excuse.
to plead ignorance.
- Synonyms:
- claim
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Law.
-
to maintain (a cause) by argument before a court.
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to allege or set forth (something) formally in an action at law.
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to allege or cite in legal defense.
to plead a statute of limitations.
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verb
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to appeal earnestly or humbly (to)
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(tr; may take a clause as object) to give as an excuse; offer in justification or extenuation
to plead ignorance
he pleaded that he was insane
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to provide an argument or appeal (for)
her beauty pleads for her
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law to declare oneself to be (guilty or not guilty) in answer to the charge
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law to advocate (a case) in a court of law
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(intr) law
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to file pleadings
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to address a court as an advocate
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Usage
What does plead mean? Plead means to beg or passionately try to persuade someone to do something. It’s similar to the word beg, which often means to request again and again. Plead can mean the same thing, but it’s especially used to imply that the request is passionate and that the person doing the pleading is desperate. It’s especially used in serious situations. A person might plead with their friend to get help with an addiction. You might plead with your teacher for more time to complete a project. Plead is used in a more specific way in a legal context, in which it means to declare one’s status in response to charges, especially to plead guilty or not guilty, as in How does the defendant plead? and My client pleads not guilty. It can also mean to argue something in court. The expression plead one’s case uses this sense of the word. Less commonly, plead can mean to offer as an excuse for or defense of one’s actions. When used this way, it’s typically followed by the specific excuse, as in, Don’t plead ignorance—you knew what you were doing. Plead has two past tense forms: pleaded and pled. The noun form of plead is plea. Example: When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dentist and used to plead with my mom not to make me go.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pleadsimple
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pleadssimple
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have pleadedperfect
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have pledperfect
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has pleadedperfect
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has pledperfect
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am pleadingprogressive
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are pleadingprogressive
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is pleadingprogressive
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have been pleadingperfect progressive
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has been pleadingperfect progressive
Past
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pleadedsimple
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pledsimple
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had pleadedperfect
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had pledperfect
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was pleadingprogressive
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were pleadingprogressive
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had been pleadingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of plead
First recordd in 1200–50; Middle English plaiden, from< Old French plaid(i)er “to go to law, plead,” from early Medieval Latin placitāre “to litigate,” derivative of Latin placitum “opinion, agreed condition.” See plea
Explanation
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.
Vocabulary lists containing plead
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Instead of "Said": Words for Asking and Offering
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"I plead for mercy for the wrongs committed by my son. Please forgive him and send him back to us."
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
I’m no expert, but I don’t think their mating rituals involve using the New York Times to plead their case or, when that doesn’t work, threatening to move en masse to Tennessee.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
On “To Catch a Predator,” there is no differentiation between the levels of danger the men pose; no mercy for those who understand they’re sick and desperately plead for rehabilitation.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026
Ho is the only defendant to plead guilty to the prosecutions.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
Someone who will not plead, or explain, or think he can alter my design with entreaties, because he alone really knows how I operate.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
"How could I know you and not have a clue?" she pleads.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
Alejandro Tellez’s contribution came with the punchy “Linda Sonrisa,” that pleads for someone to realize the realities of the mistreatment they’re facing with another lover.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
"He pleads guilty knowing that he deserves a substantial prison sentence," he said.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
“Rise up!” the chorus pleads, and demands, and hopes for.
From Salon ● May 28, 2026
“I didn’t want to take you here, but I had to. I had to. It was the only way to make you understand,” she pleads as she sways back and forth.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
Zanjani’s network established its presence on the exchange after Binance pleaded guilty in 2023 to U.S. anti-money-laundering violations and sanctions breaches.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
“Where were you when the child pleaded for help?” said the family member, who attended the board meeting on the family’s behalf.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
The pair pleaded not guilty at a Pasadena courthouse, the BBC's US partner CBS News reported.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
A former senior CIA official who was arrested in May with a hoard of hundreds of gold bars worth more than $45 million in his home pleaded guilty to fraud on Tuesday.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
“Oh my aching ear. Father Abbot, you wouldn’t see a poor son of the Spike suffering like this without a drop of last October’s nutbrown ale to wet his parched gullet,” he pleaded.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
For example, Jason Galanis, who pled guilty to defrauding the Oglala Sioux Nation, had paid just over $2 million of his $80 million restitution before his sentence was commuted and the restitution erased in 2025.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026
In August 2024 he rejected a motion to dismiss a private suit against Harvard, writing, “the facts as pled show that Harvard failed its Jewish students.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
"The day he pled guilty, I was still learning about some of the detail of what he had done for the first time."
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
In more recent cases, State Department intelligence analyst Walter Kendall Myers and former US ambassador to Bolivia Victor Manuel Rocha pled guilty in separate cases to spying for the communist country.
From Barron's ● Jul. 20, 2026
I think she would have pled with him not to steal the souls of those who would take his place.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
He resists Anna Magdalena’s urgent pleading that he accede to the invitation from Frederick to visit him at his Potsdam court.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
Footage shared widely online shows them surrounded and repeatedly pleading to be allowed to leave.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
Throughout the crisis, Kiritsis made live calls to Fred Heckman, a local AM radio news broadcaster, pleading to listeners for the justice he believed he was due.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
Then she saw the video of him pleading with the police when they first accused him of the break-in.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
Clare resorted to pleading, though it pained his every undead cell.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
