pretext

Clement’s lawyer said in a statement that the report found against her “on the pretext of ‘perception,’ the source of which was rumour, gossip and innuendo.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026

We still see this in so many cases involving the Fourth Amendment, when police use the alleged smell of marijuana as a pretext for an illegal search.

From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2026

“We’re worried this is a pretext for people to fall out of the asylum system and fall out of the workforce,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2026

Eventually, they flew her to Ahmedabad under the pretext of visiting a sick relative.

From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026

If he put his mind to it, he could coerce away the whole letter on some pretext of giving it to the police, having the typing analyzed, who knew what he might come up with?

From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

No surprise, the panel agreed with him and concocted pretexts to kill the treatment—for instance, the staff opined that maybe biopsies had zapped the tumors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

He is facing his own criminal probe related to cost overruns during renovations of Fed properties - concerns he has called "pretexts".

From BBC ● Jan. 21, 2026

He dismissed the possible threat of a criminal indictment over his testimony or the renovation project as "pretexts."

From Barron's ● Jan. 12, 2026

In Philadelphia, for example, after the aforementioned drop in citations, the city decided to phase out police enforcement of minor traffic violations, including dubious pretexts like “rearview mirror decorations.”

From Slate ● Apr. 25, 2023

He asserts that the expeditions against Mindanao and Jolo had cost much unnecessary expenditure of both money and lives; and that Corcuera has attempted to cover up these expenses under specious pretexts.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 29 of 55 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Various