Definition of "pretext"
pretext
noun
plural pretexts
A false, contrived, or assumed purpose or reason; a pretense.
Quotations
[T]hey would ſay [...] that I had quarrell'd / My brother purpoſely, thereby to finde / An apt pretext, to baniſh them my houſe.
1598, Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Euery Man in His Humour. A Comœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Ben Jonson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, Act II, scene i, page 21
"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."
1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 69
The smallest incidents were to serve as pretexts for demonstrations of force and for demands for indemnities and reparations which increased China's subjection.
1996, Jacques Gernet, translated by J. R. Foster and Charles Hartman, A History of Chinese Civilization, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 580
When that metaphor proves untenable, he switches to insisting that women are like beer but that’s mainly as a pretext to drink until he passes out in a father-son bonding haze.
2012 May 27, Nathan Rabin, “The Simpsons (Classic): ‘New Kid on the Block’ ”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 18 September 2020
verb
third-person singular simple present pretexts, present participle pretexting, simple past and past participle pretexted
To employ a pretext, which involves using a false or contrived purpose for soliciting the gain of something else.
Quotations
[…] 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 […]
1903, Henry James, The Ambassadors
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.
1970 August 12 , John Womack, Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution, New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, page 261