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 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

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

When the Reichstag building burned down, which became the pretext for Hitler’s suppression of political dissent, Szilard was dismayed by the failure of his German friends to grasp the developing reality.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

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

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

Under various pretexts and provided with introductory letters from Praskovya Ivanovna's relations, he paid a visit at Bagrovo; but the visit proved a failure.

From A Russian Gentleman by S. T. (Sergei Timofeevich) Aksakov