Other forms: pleaded, pleading, pleads
To plead is to ask for something with great feeling. Plead with him, plead for more time, pleading eyes.
The construction is plead with somebody for something. In law, to plead is to state your answer to a charge — plead guilty, plead not guilty — and there the past tense is pleaded in British English and often pled in American and Scottish usage. Plead ignorance means to offer not knowing as an excuse. Note plea, the noun, and special pleading, which means arguing for an exception without justifying it.
1verbpleadTo ask for something with great feeling.
“She pleaded with them for about an hour and got nowhere.”
2verbstateTo state your answer to a criminal charge.
“He pleaded guilty to two of the four charges.”
plead is an urgent asking.
Old French plaidier means to go to law, from a noun meaning a lawsuit. The legal sense came first in English and the emotional one grew out of it, which is why pleading still sounds like standing in front of somebody who can refuse.
Old French
plaider — to plead, offer a plea
Middle English
pleden
English, today
plead
Built from
From Middle English pleden, plaiden, from Old French plaider (“to plead, offer a plea”), from plait, from Medieval Latin placitum (“a decree, sentence, suit, plea, etc.", in Classical Latin -, "an opinion, determination, prescription, order; literally, that which is pleasing, pleasure”), neuter of placitus, past participle of placeō (“to please”). Cognate with Spanish pleitear (“to litigate, take to court”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA