special-pleadv.
/ˌspɛʃlˈpliːd/, U.S. /ˌspɛʃ(ə)lˈplid/ 1. transitive. To use special pleading towards (a person, etc.), or in defence of (an argument, etc.). Now rare.With early use cf. special pleading n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > employ sophism [verb (intransitive)]
to chop logic1528
to play the sophister?1550
Jesuit1601
casuist1643
special-plead1702
special-plead1848
1702 Law Executors & Administrators 151 The Defendant might have been helpt by special pleading it.
1796 True Briton 9 Dec. Let Gentlemen only see the narrow way in which he endeavoured to special plead the House out of its senses, and the People out of their liberties.
1810 La Belle Assemblée Oct. 217/1 Nothing gave us more real disgust than the conclusion of the mystery, which was special pleaded and quibbled away by help of alibi and misnomers, and all the common craft of Old Bailey practice.
1874 F. J. Furnivall in Trans. New Shakspere Soc. 369 Neither Mr Halliwell nor I have any desire to special-plead the point, or to strain the evidence beyond the presumption for the late date of Coriolanus that it justifies.
1978 Worldview (Council on Relig. & Internat. Affairs) Mar. 54/1 If Green tends now to special-plead the Cavalier cause, it is because he has been too much the Roundhead in the past, in keeping with the bent of social criticism of the past fifty years.
2. intransitive. To use special pleading or sophistical argument.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > speech > request > make a request [verb (intransitive)] > beseech or implore
beseech?c1225
praya1250
plead1340
pursuec1390
implore?a1513
perplead1581
entreat1593
beg1598
oratec1600
contest1607
deprecate1626
imprecatea1645
obtest1650
prig1700
special-plead1814
plea1868
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > employ sophism [verb (intransitive)]
to chop logic1528
to play the sophister?1550
Jesuit1601
casuist1643
special-plead1702
special-plead1848
1814 Edinb. Rev. Nov. 196 It does not become a Monarch, in so peculiar a situation, to special plead upon his royal word.
1848 Duke of Argyll Eccl. Hist. Scotl. 232 They [sc. the clergy]..misrepresent, conceal, and special-plead.
1895 G. B. Shaw Our Theatres in Nineties 9 Nov. (1932) 238 He may..special-plead against it [sc. the truth].
1912 D. Figgis Broken Arcs i. xxxii. 127 I'm an old man, I can talk to you as a young man can't talk to his wife—you know, she'd think he was special-pleading.
2008 N.Z. Herald 11 Dec. (Business section) The Government has dispatched Tim Groser to the climate change talks in Poznan this week to special-plead like crazy on our behalf.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2015; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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