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Pleading vs Complaint - What's the difference?

pleading | complaint |

In lang=en terms the difference between pleading and complaint

is that pleading is a document filed in a lawsuit, particularly a document initiating litigation or responding to the initiation of litigation while complaint is in criminal law, the preliminary charge or accusation made by one person against another to the appropriate court or officer, usually a magistrate.
However, court proceedings, such as a trial, cannot be instituted until an indictment or information has been handed down against the defendant.

As nouns the difference between pleading and complaint

is that pleading is the act of making a plea while complaint is a grievance, problem, difficulty, or concern; the act of complaining.

As a verb pleading

is present participle of lang=en.

As an adjective pleading

is that pleads.

pleading

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act of making a plea.
  • * (Thomas Hardy)
    • But it pleased her to play on my passion / And whet me to pleadings / That won from her mirthful negations / And scornings undue.
  • (legal) A document filed in a lawsuit, particularly a document initiating litigation or responding to the initiation of litigation.

    • Verb

    (head)

    • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • That pleads.
  • * 1955 , , Ann Lindsay, Earth , p. 251:
    • Franchise, relaxed and soothed by the vagueness of a surrender set so far in the future, simply took hold of his two hands to make him behave himself and looked at him with her pretty pleading eyes — the eyes of a sensitive woman who didn't want to risk having a child by anyone but her husband.
  • * 1999 , (Simone de Beauvoir), The Mandarins , p. 599:
    • With a pleading look, she raised her eyes to him.
  • * 1993 , (Charles Haddon Spurgeon), Psalms , p. 225:
    • Have but a pleading heart and God will have a plenteous hand.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}

    Derived terms

    * pleadingly

    Anagrams

    *

    complaint

    English

    (wikipedia complaint)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A grievance, problem, difficulty, or concern; the act of complaining.
    • I have no complaints about the quality of his work, but I don't enjoy his company.
  • (legal) In a civil action, the first pleading of the plaintiff setting out the facts on which the claim is based;
    The purpose is to give notice to the adversary of the nature and basis of the claim asserted.
  • (legal) In criminal law, the preliminary charge or accusation made by one person against another to the appropriate court or officer, usually a magistrate.
    However, court proceedings, such as a trial, cannot be instituted until an indictment or information has been handed down against the defendant.
  • A consumer complaint.
  • A bodily disorder or disease; the symptom of such a disorder.
    • Don't come too close, I've got this nasty complaint .

    Anagrams

    *