"plead the Fifth" meaning in English

See plead the Fifth in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: pleads the Fifth [present, singular, third-person], pleading the Fifth [participle, present], pled the Fifth [past], pleaded the Fifth [past], pled the Fifth [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|plead<pleads,pleading,pled> the Fifth|past2=pleaded the Fifth}} plead the Fifth (third-person singular simple present pleads the Fifth, present participle pleading the Fifth, simple past pled the Fifth or pleaded the Fifth, past participle pled the Fifth)
  1. (law, US) To invoke the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves. Tags: US Categories (topical): Law Synonyms: take the fifth
    Sense id: en-plead_the_Fifth-en-verb-rdUs~ttL Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 94 6 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 95 5 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 97 3 Topics: law
  2. (by extension, informal, humorous) To refuse to answer a question, or refuse to speak, especially when the response would reflect badly on the speaker. Tags: broadly, humorous, informal
    Sense id: en-plead_the_Fifth-en-verb-aiahJbBN

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pleads the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pleading the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pled the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pleaded the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pled the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "plead<pleads,pleading,pled> the Fifth",
        "past2": "pleaded the Fifth"
      },
      "expansion": "plead the Fifth (third-person singular simple present pleads the Fifth, present participle pleading the Fifth, simple past pled the Fifth or pleaded the Fifth, past participle pled the Fifth)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Law",
          "orig": "en:Law",
          "parents": [
            "Justice",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "95 5",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "97 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "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",
          "law#English"
        ],
        [
          "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."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "97 3",
          "word": "take the fifth"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "law"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "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 reflect badly on the speaker."
      ],
      "id": "en-plead_the_Fifth-en-verb-aiahJbBN",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "answer",
          "answer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension, informal, humorous) To refuse to answer a question, or refuse to speak, especially when the response would reflect badly on the speaker."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "humorous",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "plead the Fifth"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English verbs",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pleads the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pleading the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pled the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pleaded the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pled the Fifth",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "plead<pleads,pleading,pled> the Fifth",
        "past2": "pleaded the Fifth"
      },
      "expansion": "plead the Fifth (third-person singular simple present pleads the Fifth, present participle pleading the Fifth, simple past pled the Fifth or pleaded the Fifth, past participle pled the Fifth)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "en:Law"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To invoke the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "law",
          "law#English"
        ],
        [
          "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": [
        "English humorous terms",
        "English informal terms",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "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 reflect badly on the speaker."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "answer",
          "answer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension, informal, humorous) To refuse to answer a question, or refuse to speak, especially when the response would reflect badly on the speaker."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "humorous",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "take the fifth"
    }
  ],
  "word": "plead the Fifth"
}

Download raw JSONL data for plead the Fifth meaning in English (2.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (e4a2c88 and 4230888). 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.