pretext

noun

1. 1

   A false, contrived, or assumed purpose or reason; a pretense.

   The reporter called the company on the pretext of trying to resolve a consumer complaint.

   [T]hey would ſay [...] that I had quarrell'd / My brother purpoſely, thereby to finde / An apt pretext, to baniſh them my houſe.

   "After all," said the Chevalier, "these portraits—Madame de I'Hôpital's fortune-telling—the pleasure we take in a lover or a physician—may all be referred to the same cause,—we do so enjoy talking about ourselves; and yet we feel some sort of excuse necessary. It must be admitted, that we are ready in pretexts."

   On every kind of pretext she would run away from work [...]

verb

1. 1

   To employ a pretext, which involves using a false or contrived purpose for soliciting the gain of something else.

   The spy obtained his phone records using possibly-illegal pretexting methods.

   […] the something in the air of these establishments; the vibration of the vast, strange life of the town; the influence of the types, the performers, concocting their messages; the little prompt Paris women arranging, pretexting goodness knew what, driving the dreadful needle-pointed public pen at the dreadful sand-strewn public table[…]

   Not all the surviving veteran chiefs would actually fight. Some remained nominally in the resistance but in practice delayed at their bases, pretexting a lack of ammunition for their uncertain inertia.

Forms

plural

pretexts

past tense

pretexted

past participle

pretexted

present participle

pretexting

third person singular

pretexts