See plead the Fifth on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "pleads the Fifth",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "pleading the Fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "pled the Fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pled the Fifth",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pleaded the Fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pleaded the Fifth",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "plead the fifth",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
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},
"expansion": "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)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "American English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Law",
"orig": "en:Law",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"_dis": "84 16",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "85 15",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "86 14",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
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}
],
"glosses": [
"To invoke the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves."
],
"id": "en-plead_the_Fifth-en-verb-rdUs~ttL",
"links": [
[
"law",
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],
[
"Fifth Amendment",
"Fifth Amendment"
],
[
"United States",
"United States"
],
[
"Constitution",
"constitution"
],
[
"incriminate",
"incriminate"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(law, US) To invoke the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves."
],
"tags": [
"US"
],
"topics": [
"law"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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80,
95
],
[
97,
101
]
],
"text": "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))",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To refuse to answer a question, or refuse to speak especially when the response would be embarrassing or uncomfortable."
],
"id": "en-plead_the_Fifth-en-verb-TkhwSSFu",
"links": [
[
"refuse",
"refuse"
],
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"answer"
],
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],
[
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],
[
"speak",
"speak"
],
[
"embarrassing",
"embarrassing"
],
[
"uncomfortable",
"uncomfortable"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension, informal, humorous) To refuse to answer a question, or refuse to speak especially when the response would be embarrassing or uncomfortable."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "take the fifth"
}
],
"tags": [
"broadly",
"humorous",
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
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"tags": [
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}
],
"word": "plead the Fifth"
}
{
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"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English verbs",
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],
"forms": [
{
"form": "pleads the Fifth",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "pleading the Fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "pled the Fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pled the Fifth",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pleaded the Fifth",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "pleaded the Fifth",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "plead the fifth",
"tags": [
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]
}
],
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"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
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"en:Law"
],
"glosses": [
"To invoke the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves."
],
"links": [
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],
[
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[
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],
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(law, US) To invoke the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves."
],
"tags": [
"US"
],
"topics": [
"law"
]
},
{
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],
"text": "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))",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To refuse to answer a question, or refuse to speak especially when the response would be embarrassing or uncomfortable."
],
"links": [
[
"refuse",
"refuse"
],
[
"answer",
"answer"
],
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"question"
],
[
"refuse",
"refuse"
],
[
"speak",
"speak"
],
[
"embarrassing",
"embarrassing"
],
[
"uncomfortable",
"uncomfortable"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension, informal, humorous) To refuse to answer a question, or refuse to speak especially when the response would be embarrassing or uncomfortable."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "take the fifth"
}
],
"tags": [
"broadly",
"humorous",
"informal"
]
}
],
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"tags": [
"US"
]
}
],
"word": "plead the Fifth"
}
Download raw JSONL data for plead the Fifth meaning in All languages combined (2.9kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.