Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A plea made by the defendant in a criminal action that is substantially but not technically an admission of guilt and subjects the defendant to punishment but permits denial of the alleged facts in other proceedings.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In criminal law, a plea equivalent, as against the prosecution, to that of “guilty.” It submits to the punishment, but does not admit the facts alleged.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- (Law) A plea, by the defendant, in a criminal prosecution, which, without admitting guilt, subjects him to all the consequences of a plea of guilty.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun law
No contest . The designation of a plea that means that thedefendant does not admit the charge, but has no means to dispute it that the court will recognize.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (law) an answer of `no contest' by a defendant who does not admit guilt but that subjects him to conviction
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Latin nōlō contendere, I do not wish to contend : nōlō, first person sing. present tense of nōlle, to be unwilling + contendere, to contend.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Directly from Latin nolo contendere ("I do not wish to contend").
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word nolo contendere.
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.