Word.ws English Dictionary

special pleading

special pleading noun: arguing that a particular case is an exception to a generally accepted rule, without justification and without a relevant basis.

Noun

special pleading (countable and uncountable, plural special pleadings)

  1. Arguing that a particular case is an exception to a generally accepted rule, without justification and without a relevant basis.
    • Lt. Gilbert deserves a full and fair hearing just like everyone else, no matter how the chips fall, no special pleading, and no playing the gender card.1997 September 30, The Court-Martial of Sandra Gilbert (JAG), season 3, episode 2

Synonyms of special pleading

Forms of special pleading

pluralspecial pleadings

Words formed from special pleading

Questions about special pleading

What does special pleading mean?
Special pleading means arguing that a particular case is an exception to a generally accepted rule, without justification and without a relevant basis.
What part of speech is special pleading?
Special pleading is a noun.
What is the plural of special pleading?
The plural of special pleading is special pleadings.

Words near special pleading in the dictionary

  1. special ops
  2. special order sale
  3. special order sales
  4. special pleader
  5. special pleaders
  6. special pleading
  7. special pleadings
  8. special police
  9. special proceeding
  10. special proceedings
  11. special prosecutor

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: special pleading (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: “special pleading.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/special_pleading. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.