pretext

Jin Yong-sung, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, also ordered the military to "respond with firm resolve" should North Korea use Seoul's actions as a pretext for aggressive action.

From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2026

The findings of a second report — which reviewed pretext stops by officers from other units in January — are expected to be presented at an upcoming commission meeting.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026

In February, when Russia opened a case against him, Durov described it as a pretext to restrict Russians’ privacy and free speech.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 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

“An excellent pretext—but a pretext all the same.”

From "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie

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

And now the monks were running away on all sorts of pretexts, and he, who was their prior, also was feeling an unexplainable impulse to follow their example.

From The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer) by Vicente Blasco Ib??ez