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

“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

“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

On every kind of pretext she would run away from work and go to the drinking pool, where she would stand foolishly gazing at her own reflection in the water.

From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell

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 pretexts used to justify such actions are untenable. Ideological hostility has triumphed over businesslike pragmatism," it added.

From Barron's ● Jan. 3, 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

Far be from me all these vain, indifferent pretexts.

From The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyam