plea of insanity

1. 1.

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

   Synonymsinsanity plea

   Broaderplea

   criminal law

Questions about plea of insanity

What does plea of insanity mean?

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

What is another word for plea of insanity?

Close synonyms include insanity plea. 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 plea of insanity a common word?

plea of insanity 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.