Word.ws English Dictionary

plea-bargaining

plea-bargaining is the present participle and gerund of plea-bargain.

Meaning of plea-bargain

Verb

plea-bargain (third-person singular simple present plea-bargains, present participle plea-bargaining, simple past and past participle plea-bargained)

  1. (US) To make an agreement in which a defendant agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge instead of not guilty to a greater one.
    • […] former District Attorney, Butters said "[…] I think the fact that so many plead guilty proves that these cases should have been prosecuted." One of those who plea-bargained disagrees. Ed Mede last week pleaded guilty to one count of sex with a minor under 16. "This does not prove my gilt...1979 April 28, Tom Reeves, “Revere Sex Cases Resolved”, in Gay Community News, page 1

Questions about plea-bargaining

What is plea-bargaining the present participle and gerund of?
Plea-bargaining is the present participle and gerund of plea-bargain.

Words near plea-bargaining in the dictionary

  1. plea deals
  2. plea in abatement
  3. plea of the crown
  4. plea-bargain
  5. plea-bargained
  6. plea-bargaining
  7. plea-bargains
  8. pleace
  9. pleach
  10. pleached
  11. pleacher

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plea-bargaining (page history and authors); plea-bargain (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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Cite this entry: “plea-bargaining.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plea-bargaining. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.