insanity plea

1. 1.

   (criminal law) a plea in which the defendant claims innocence due to mental incompetence at the time

   Synonymsplea of insanity

   Broaderplea

   criminal law

Questions about insanity plea

What does insanity plea mean?

insanity plea means "(criminal law) a plea in which the defendant claims innocence due to mental incompetence at the time".

What is another word for insanity plea?

Close synonyms include plea of insanity. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is insanity plea a common word?

insanity plea is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.