pretext

The man had been called into the local police station on the pretext of checking his personal data.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

“The FCC has spent the last 18 months searching for some pretext for revoking the stations’ licenses,” Disney’s attorneys wrote in the filing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026

We narrowed the search for Jamal with several sources - one of them arranged a call with Jamal under a false pretext and recorded their conversation.

From BBC ● Jul. 2, 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

Caesar had no pretext on which to leave the grounds until Sunday.

From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead

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

Actions over the Fed building were "pretexts", he said.

From BBC ● Jan. 12, 2026

The same month Iraq's embassy in Moscow warned of "attempts to lure or coerce some Iraqis residing in Russia or abroad into joining the war under various pretexts".

From Barron's ● Nov. 5, 2025

The pretexts are flimsy; due process is absent, and mistakes have already been made.

From Slate ● Apr. 3, 2025

The Florentine authors exhaust in vain their investigations to discover motives or pretexts for the enmity of the Pazzi to the Medici.

From The Power Of The Popes by Pierre Claude Fran?ois Daunou