plead the belly

present singular third person pleads the belly · participle present pleading the belly · participle past pleaded the belly · past pleaded the belly

1. historicalTo attempt to use one's claimed pregnancy to avoid execution.

   She isn't hanged, while in jail, because she pleads the belly.

   1994, Leslie Scalapino, Defoe, Sun and Moon Press, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Over 25 per cent of the 463 women who were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey pleaded the belly between 1674 and 1699, and 38 per cent from 1700 to 1724, though a much smaller proportion did so later.

   2009, Shani D'Cruze, Louise A. Jackson, Women, Crime and Justice in England since 1660, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN

   I was telling them only the other day about pregnant women avoiding the Drop in the eighteenth century by pleading the belly.

   2013, M.J. Trow, Maxwell's Chain, Allison & Busby, →ISBN