Word.ws English Dictionary

plead the fifth

plead the fifth is the alternative letter-case form of plead the Fifth.

Verb capitalized: plead the Fifth

plead the Fifth (third-person singular simple present pleads the Fifth, present participle pleading the Fifth, simple past and past participle pled the Fifth or pleaded the Fifth)

  1. (US) To invoke the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves.
  2. (broadly, humorous, informal) To refuse to answer a question, or refuse to speak especially when the response would be embarrassing or uncomfortable.
    • Yo ain't no city in the world like this // An' if you ask how I know, I gots ta plead the fifth (1998, Miami (Will Smith song))
    Synonyms:
    take the fifth

Synonyms of plead the fifth

Forms of plead the fifth

third-person singular presentpleads the fifth
present participlepleading the fifth
past participlepled the fifth
pastpled the fifth
past participlepleaded the fifth
pastpleaded the fifth
third-person singular presentpleads the Fifth
present participlepleading the Fifth
past participlepled the Fifth
pastpled the Fifth
past participlepleaded the Fifth
pastpleaded the Fifth
alternative formplead the fifth

Questions about plead the fifth

What does plead the fifth mean?
Plead the fifth means to invoke the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves.
What is plead the fifth the alternative letter-case form of?
Plead the fifth is the alternative letter-case form of plead the Fifth.
What part of speech is plead the fifth?
Plead the fifth is a verb.
What is the past tense of plead the fifth?
The past tense of plead the fifth is pled the fifth.

Words near plead the fifth in the dictionary

  1. plead down
  2. plead out
  3. plead over
  4. plead the belly
  5. plead the blood of Jesus
  6. plead the fifth
  7. plead up
  8. pleadable
  9. pleadableness
  10. pleaded
  11. pleaded down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plead the fifth (page history and authors); plead the Fifth (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)-Flame, not lame-plead the Fifth.wav.

Cite this entry: “plead the fifth.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plead_the_fifth. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.