pleading

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A plea; an entreaty.
2. n. Law Advocacy of causes in court.
3. n. Law A formal statement, generally written, propounding the cause of action or the defense in a case.
4. n. Law The consecutive statements, allegations, and counterallegations made by plaintiff and defendant, or prosecutor and accused, in a legal proceeding.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of advocating any cause; specifically, the act or practice of advocating clients' causes in courts of law.
2. n. In law: The document (or in some inferior courts an oral statement) formally setting forth the cause of action or the defense of a party. The objects of pleading are to inform the adverse party what questions he must be prepared to meet at the trial; to inform the court what questions are to be determined; and to preserve a record which, with the verdict or judgment, shall show what matters are not afterward to be drawn in question. The term pleadings is applied to the documents on either side, whether a declaration, complaint, or bill with demurrer, or a declaration with plea, etc., or a bill or complaint with plea or answer, etc., which form the issue on which it is proposed to try the cause. See issue, 10.
3. n. The formal allegation on the record of that which is to be relied on as the support of the party's case in evidence
4. n. The rules and usages of framing such documents, and of the sufficiency of their contents : the art of drawing pleadings
5. n. plural The written allegations made in alternate series by the plaintiff and the defendant of their respective grounds of action and defense, terminating in propositions distinctly affirmed on one side and denied on the other, called the issue. Heard. In a more limited sense, only those allegations or altercations which are subsequent to the count or declaration
6. n. The science of pleading, which, until the English Common-law Procedure Act, in 1852, constituted a distinct branch of the law, having the merit of developing the points in controversy with great precision. Its strictness and subtlety were frequently a subject of complaint, and one of the objects of the act was to relax and simplify its rules
7. n. In popular use, the specious but unsound or unfair argumentation of one whose aim is victory rather than truth.

Wiktionary

1. n. law A document filed in a lawsuit, particularly a document initiating litigation or responding to the initiation of litigation.
2. v. present participle of plead.
3. adj. Of or pertaining to that which pleads.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of advocating, defending, or supporting, a cause by arguments.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (law) a statement in legal and logical form stating something on behalf of a party to a legal proceeding
2. adj. begging.