plea
/pliː/
plea noun: an appeal, petition, urgent prayer or entreaty.
Noun
plea (plural pleas)
- An appeal, petition, urgent prayer or entreaty.
- Even if only one person answers my plea for someone to correspond with it will be a blessing.1981 December 1, George D. Johnson, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 20, page 18
- a plea for mercy
- An excuse; an apology.
- Necessity, the tyrant’s plea.1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
- No Plea must serve; ’tis cruelty to spare.1668, Sir John Denham, Poems and Translations with The Sophy, “The Sophy”, Actus Primus, Scena Segunda, page 6
- That which is alleged or pleaded, in defense or in justification.
- That which is alleged by a party in support of his cause.
- An allegation of fact in a cause, as distinguished from a demurrer.
- The defendant’s answer to the plaintiff’s declaration and demand.
- A cause in court; a lawsuit; as, the Court of Common Pleas.
- they or any three of them shall be a Court and have cognizance of pleas real, personal, and mixed.1782, "An Act establishing a Supreme Judicial Court within the Commonwealth", quoted in The Constitutional History of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Frank Washburn Grinnell, 1917, page...
Verb
plea (third-person singular simple present pleas, present participle pleaing, simple past and past participle pleaed)
- To plead; to argue.
- With my riches, my unhappiness was increased tenfold; and here, with another great acquisition of property, for which I had pleaed, and which I had gained in a dream, my miseries and difficulties were increasing.1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
plea meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
plea in Hindi
- appeal, petition, entreaty
- याचना yācnā
plea in Tamil
- இரைஞ்சல், முறையீடு, வழக்கு, வாதம், வாதுரை, வேண்டுதல்
plea in Urdu
- درخواست, عذر, وجہ
plea in Bengali
- plea, entreaty, appeal, invocation
- দোহাই dōhai
More languagesFewer languages
- plea in Malayalam
- അപേക്ഷ, പ്രതിവാദം
- plea in Kannada
- ಕೋರಿಕೆ, ಬೇಡುವಿಕೆ, ಬೇಡಿಕೆ, ಬೇಳ್ಕೆ
- plea in Gujarati
- ગુજારિશ gujāriś
- plea in Persian
- تقاضا taqâzâ, دادخواست dâdxwâst
Examples of plea in a sentence
- She stood with dead face and limp arms, unresponsive to my plea.
- The child’s pathetic pleas for forgiveness stirred the young man’s heart.
- If you do not plead, a plea of not guilty will be entered for you.
Synonyms of plea
Forms of plea
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pleas |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pleas |
| present participle | pleaing |
| past participle | pleaed |
| past | pleaed |
Origin of plea
From Middle English ple, from Old French plait, plaid, from Medieval Latin placitum (“a decree, sentence, suit, plea, etc., Latin an opinion, determination, prescription, order; literally, that which is pleasing, pleasure”), neuter of placitus, past participle of placere (“to please”). Cognate with Spanish pleito (“lawsuit, suit”). Doublet of placit. See also please, pleasure.
Words formed from plea
Phrases with plea
Words that rhyme with plea
Questions about plea
- What does plea mean?
- Plea means an appeal, petition, urgent prayer or entreaty.
- What is plea in Hindi?
- Plea in Hindi is याचना (yācnā). See Plea meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is plea?
- Plea can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce plea?
- Plea is pronounced /pliː/.
- What is the plural of plea?
- The plural of plea is pleas.
Words near plea in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: plea (page history and authors); plea (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plea (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); দোহাই (Bengali) (page history and authors); plea (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); plea (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ગુજારિશ (Gujarati) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-plea.wav.
Cite this entry: “plea.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plea. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.