Plead or pled?
pled is the simple past and past participle of plead. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) plead is about 7.9 times as common as pled.
What is the difference between plead and pled?
| plead | pled | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To present (an argument or a plea), especially in a legal case To beg, beseech, or implore, especially emotionally | simple past and past participle of plead |
| Example | The defendant has decided to plead not guilty | When the indictment was read over, and the Jury sworn in, the prisoner pled guilty |
| Forms | pleads, pleading, pleaded, pled | none |
| Pronunciation | /pliːd/ /plɛd/ | /plɛd/ |
| In writing | 4.3 times per million words | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: plead and pled in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of plead and pled
plead
- 1
To present (an argument or a plea), especially in a legal case
The defendant has decided to plead not guilty
- 2
To beg, beseech, or implore, especially emotionally
He pleaded with me not to leave the house
- 3
To offer by way of excuse
Not wishing to attend the banquet, I pleaded illness
- 4
To discuss by arguments
pled
- 1
Initialism of polymer light-emitting diode
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, plead or pled?
plead appears 4.3 times per million words; pled about once in every 2 million words.
plead 4.3 times per million wordspled about once in every 2 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search plead vs pled?
“plead vs pled” is searched about 1,300 times a month on Google and 40 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“pled vs plead”, “plead or pled”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.