the principal pleading by the defendant in response to plaintiff's complaint; in criminal law it consists of the defendant's plea of `guilty' or `not guilty' (or nolo contendere); in civil law it must contain denials of all allegations in the plaintiff's complaint that the defendant hopes to controvert and it can contain affirmative defenses or counterclaims
<noun.communication>
<noun.communication>
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lexical pointers
derivationally related form
semantic pointers
hypernym
domain of synset (topic)
hyponym