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Special pleading   /spˈɛʃəl plˈidɪŋ/   Listen
Special pleading

noun
1.
An argument that ignores all unfavorable evidence.
2.
(law) a pleading that alleges new facts in avoidance of the opposing allegations.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Special pleading" Quotes from Famous Books



... of thanks," he said, gently. "Take heart of grace, Miss Hastings. God helping us we will save him yet. I had selected him for my subject of special pleading before ...
— Three People • Pansy

... Cohen)[FN334] in a Syrian convent; he crossed Arabia as a good Moslem and he finally returned to his premier amour, Anglicanism. But his picturesque depreciation of Mohammedanism, which has found due appreciation in more than one popular volume, [FN335] is a notable specimen of special pleading, of the ad captandum in its modern and least honest form. The writer begins by assuming the arid and barren Wahhabi-ism, which he had personally studied, as a fair expression of the Saving Faith. What should we say to a Moslem traveller who would make the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... patient scholar, and a scholarly patient, allow me to 'exhibit' my own medicines according to my own notion of the various crises of your distemper. I assure you I will not play you false, or entrap you by quips and special pleading. You are aware that our Lord's miracles were almost exclusively miracles of healing—restorations of that order of health which disease was breaking—that when the Scribes and Pharisees, superstitious and sense-bound, asked him ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... savage races lose that morale and discipline which come from contests with their military peers, so minds steeped in the degrading atmosphere of Oriental diplomacy become inevitably corrupted, and lose the fine distinction between right and wrong. But so specious a piece of special pleading cannot serve Clive's turn. English diplomacy at home and abroad has always, with the rarest exceptions, plumed itself on its truthfulness, and has often been successful by reason of that very truthfulness. The practically ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... in connection with northern mythology, where the line between mythic and historical events gathering round a hero is generally so finely drawn as to be almost imperceptible. But it is so obviously a piece of special pleading on self-created lines that other explanation is needed. And another explanation is to be obtained if only students will rely upon the evidence of tradition itself instead of appealing to every fancy derived from sources which have ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme



Words linked to "Special pleading" :   specious argument, jurisprudence, law, pleading



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