Ultimately from Latin placitum. Cognate with Spanish pleito and English plea.

• Hyphenation: plei‧to

pleito m (plural pleitos)

1. lawsuit

   Synonym: processo

2. disagreement, argument

   Synonyms: discussão, briga

3. electoral debate
4. (archaic) pact

• pleitear

• “pleito”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “pleito”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Ultimately from Medieval Latin placitum. Cognate with Portuguese pleito and English plea.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpleito/ [ˈplei̯.t̪o]

• Audio (Costa Rica):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eito
• Syllabification: plei‧to

pleito m (plural pleitos)

1. (law) lawsuit

   Synonyms: juicio, demanda, proceso

   • 2024 January 9, Miguel Jiménez, Iker Seisdedos, “Caso cerrado: el Thyssen gana el pleito para quedarse el ‘pisarro’ expoliado por los nazis”, in El País‎^[1]:

     Un pleito millonario de casi dos décadas había quedado reducido a una pregunta aparentemente simple para resolverlo: ¿se debe aplicar la ley española o la californiana?

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. (Latin America) fight

   Synonym: pelea

3. (Latin America) argument

   Synonym: discusión

• “pleito”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025