pretext

Filmon Eyob, a co-ordinator within Nairobi's Eritrean community, agrees with concerns that the crackdown order will be used as pretext to harass foreigners.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

The audit found that gang units citywide routinely flouted the department’s rules on pretext stops, including by often failing to obtain proper consent to search vehicles.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026

The parties “worked in tandem and were never actually adverse,” she wrote, calling the lawsuit a pretext for a settlement “that had no viable basis in law or fact.”

From Slate ● Aug. 10, 2026

“As we did before, we will challenge this latest pretext and preserve her position and the historic role of the Fed.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

There seemed no further pretext for holding it, though it had been rather nice while it lasted.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

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

The Syrian foreign ministry denounced the attack as "an outrageous assault on Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity" and called Israel's justification "flimsy pretexts and fabricated excuses".

From BBC ● Mar. 20, 2026

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

From Barron's ● Jan. 12, 2026

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

From Slate ● Apr. 3, 2025

Her pale, pensive face and widow’s weeds seemed to possess peculiar attractions for Doctor E., and her hand was a bond of mutual sympathy between them, and afforded many pretexts for a half hour’s conversation.

From Nurse and Spy in the Union Army The Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields by S. Emma E. Edmonds