What's the difference between excuse and plea?

Excuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To free from accusation, or the imputation of fault or blame; to clear from guilt; to release from a charge; to justify by extenuating a fault; to exculpate; to absolve; to acquit.
  • (v. t.) To pardon, as a fault; to forgive entirely, or to admit to be little censurable, and to overlook; as, we excuse irregular conduct, when extraordinary circumstances appear to justify it.
  • (v. t.) To regard with indulgence; to view leniently or to overlook; to pardon.
  • (v. t.) To free from an impending obligation or duty; hence, to disengage; to dispense with; to release by favor; also, to remit by favor; not to exact; as, to excuse a forfeiture.
  • (v. t.) To relieve of an imputation by apology or defense; to make apology for as not seriously evil; to ask pardon or indulgence for.
  • (v. t.) The act of excusing, apologizing, exculpating, pardoning, releasing, and the like; acquittal; release; absolution; justification; extenuation.
  • (v. t.) That which is offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or irregular deportment; apology; as, an excuse for neglect of duty; excuses for delay of payment.
  • (v. t.) That which excuses; that which extenuates or justifies a fault.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As he told us: 'Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.'
  • (2) We need to stop making excuses for them: But it is up to the state to close the loopholes Yes, the state must work continually to tighten and simplify the tax regime, which is a deliberate mess keeping an entire industry of accounting firms and tax lawyers fed.
  • (3) "With hindsight," he writes, "it was a trumped-up excuse for radical activism for its own sake."
  • (4) The Frenchman has been excused from duty at Everton on Saturday on compassionate grounds and the club have put no time frame on his possible return.
  • (5) Becton’s lawyer, Hannah Stroud, told a separate news conference that stress was no excuse for Casebolt’s actions and “the manner in which Ms Becton was treated was excessive, inappropriate and without cause” and a civil rights violation.
  • (6) Well, Machado put those skills on display on Sunday, and this is an excuse to bring you his ridiculous play against the Yankees.
  • (7) This prompted an angry response from the bill's sponsors who accused opponents of using border security as an excuse to block any immigration reform.
  • (8) This lovely coastal route also gives you an excuse to hop on the Skye ferry, which plies its way over the narrows to Kylerhea from the start of this walk.
  • (9) I think the French manager told him ‘it’s very difficult to watch you when you’re not playing for PSG’ – he hasn’t got that excuse now.” Palace are also well worth watching.
  • (10) I'm not a believer, and my only problem with artistic licence is when the phrase is used as an excuse to oversimplify a work to improve its marketability.
  • (11) Nothing in this context can be soft-pedalled and excused.
  • (12) He continues: “And a ‘no excuses’ culture where excellence is the norm.” Police were called by a member of the public shortly after 11am after reports of a disturbance outside the school in George V Avenue, where a number of parents and pupils had gathered.
  • (13) The current IRS controversy does not excuse sham political organizations masquerading as social welfare organizations, and shines a light on the critical need for campaign spending disclosure legislation.
  • (14) David Winnick, the MP for Walsall North, said: "None of [May's] excuses can explain away the sheer incompetence and shambles that have occurred on her watch."
  • (15) Sessions are scheduled regularly throughout the year and take place outside the hospital; interns are excused from their service responsibilities for the duration of the meeting.
  • (16) "There is no excuse to cut back on services that patients depend on.
  • (17) His team had been working on a protest-themed game for the past two years, and the frenzy surrounding Occupy Central gave them an excuse to release a prototype.
  • (18) After years of on-and-off e-dating, in which I've met 150-200 women, fallen in love with one and invented extravagant excuses to extricate myself from awkward encounters with countless others, you might think I'd be tired of it all.
  • (19) "We are always followed by a crowd of people – not journalists, but people who are following us and track our every move, and look for any excuse to detain us."
  • (20) The bar on religious weddings was meant to reassure the faithful, but the Church of England has twisted the weird and novel distinction between religious and secular marriages into an excuse to oppose the whole reform , while it is left to Labour's Yvette Cooper to speak for liberal Jews and Quakers who resent the continuing bar on them offering ceremonial equality.

Plea


Definition:

  • (n.) That which is alleged by a party in support of his cause; in a stricter sense, an allegation of fact in a cause, as distinguished from a demurrer; in a still more limited sense, and in modern practice, the defendant's answer to the plaintiff's declaration and demand. That which the plaintiff alleges in his declaration is answered and repelled or justified by the defendant's plea. In chancery practice, a plea is a special answer showing or relying upon one or more things as a cause why the suit should be either dismissed, delayed, or barred. In criminal practice, the plea is the defendant's formal answer to the indictment or information presented against him.
  • (n.) A cause in court; a lawsuit; as, the Court of Common Pleas. See under Common.
  • (n.) That which is alleged or pleaded, in defense or in justification; an excuse; an apology.
  • (n.) An urgent prayer or entreaty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Oscar Pistorius ‘to be released in August’ as appeal date is set for November Read more But the parole board at his prison overruled an emotional plea from the 29-year-old victim’s parents when it sat last week.
  • (2) Tony Abbott has refused to concede that saying Aboriginal people who live in remote communities have made a “lifestyle choice” was a poor choice of words as the father of reconciliation issued a public plea to rebuild relations with Indigenous people.
  • (3) Over the next few days, I look forward to reviewing this guilty plea closely to see whether it appropriately holds officers, directors and key executives individually accountable and whether the plea will be sufficient to help deter similar misconduct in the future,” he said.
  • (4) On Monday this week a second witness came forward and supported key aspects of Ruffin’s version of events, including that police had ignored Dhu’s pleas for help over several days.
  • (5) The son of the slain Afghan police commander (who is the husband of one of the killed pregnant woman and brother of the other) says that villagers refer to US Special Forces as the "American Taliban" and that he refrained from putting on a suicide belt and attacking US soldiers with it only because of the pleas of his grieving siblings.
  • (6) He is scheduled to return to court on Monday for a detention hearing and will enter a plea on 6 January.
  • (7) A plea is made to label the stroma of malignant cystosarcomas as to the cell(s) of origin so future investigators may evaluate the effect of various soft tissue patterns on prognosis.
  • (8) A military judge still must decide whether to accept his plea.
  • (9) Two women, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have also been accused; one of these women has submitted three guilty pleas.
  • (10) What happens to those often effective pleas for privacy the PCC distributes?
  • (11) A strong plea for adequate immobilization (three to six weeks) after carpal tunnel release is made.
  • (12) The boys claim they were entrapped, but one is now expected to change his plea to guilty.
  • (13) The driver refused to stop at her village despite her repeated pleas and instead drove her, the only passenger on the bus, to a remote farmhouse where he and the bus conductor were joined by five friends.
  • (14) On the face of it, Huhne's guilty plea last month on a charge of perverting the course of justice over a 2003 speeding case ought to have killed the Liberal Democrats' hopes of holding the seat.
  • (15) Ørnskov, who has been running Shire since May 2013, set out a plea to remain independent last month even as he admitted that he could not close the door on bids.
  • (16) A plea is made for legislative support to pay for lab work and the establishment of state or national laboratories equipped to handle evidentiary material.
  • (17) A plea is made for more accurate assessment of the disease status.
  • (18) The plea bargain agreement reveals that Blazer, who was general secretary of the North and Central American Concacaf governing body, began providing information to the authorities in December 2011 – more than three years before the US government charged 14 current and former Fifa officials with “hijacking” international football to run “a World Cup of fraud” to line their pockets by $150m.
  • (19) Bosch, who has been undergoing treatment for cocaine addiction since his guilty plea, was joined by more than two dozen friends and family members at his sentencing hearing.
  • (20) A day after making a personal appeal to the US and Cuban leaders to end their half-century of estrangement , Francis issued his plea to Colombia’s warring factions from Revolution Plaza at the end of his Sunday mass.