Placitare

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To engage in formal legal dispute or argument in a court of law ; to plead or contend during judicial proceedings ; to participate in a lawsuit through advocating a case
2. Involving oneself in litigation by arguing a case before a judge ; presenting claims or defenses during a trial ; taking active part in judicial contests
3. Participating in judicial procedures through formal pleadings or arguments ; conducting legal advocacy in a courtroom ; asserting one's position in lawsuit deliberations

Etymology: "Placitare" is a Latin verb, a frequentative of "placere" (to please, to be agreeable), but its legal sense grew out of a different meaning of "placitum." In Latin, "placitum" originally meant a decision or decree, something that had been agreed or determined, and by the medieval period it had come to mean a formal court session or the pleadings made within one. "Placitare," in turn, came to describe the act of arguing a case before such a court, which is why its meaning reaches so far from "to please." The word is a medieval Latin coinage, used in the courts and legal records of Europe rather than in classical literature. Medieval court records across England and the continent used "placitare" and its related forms to describe lawyers and litigants pleading their causes. Its English relatives, such as "plea" and "plead," came through Anglo-Norman French, and the Latin "placitum" is the ancestor of the "plea" in "pleading" and in the phrase "pleas of the Crown."

Synonyms: plead, argue, advocate, defend, contest

Antonyms: ignore, avoid, neglect, dismiss, abandon