pretext
Americannoun
-
pretexts
plural
-
something that is put forward to conceal a true purpose or object; an ostensible reason; excuse.
The leaders used the insults as a pretext to declare war.
-
the misleading appearance or behavior assumed with this intention.
His many lavish compliments were a pretext for subtle mockery.
- Synonyms:
- evasion, subterfuge
noun
-
a fictitious reason given in order to conceal the real one
-
a specious excuse; pretence
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pretext
1505–15; < Latin praetextum pretext, ornament, noun use of neuter past participle of praetexere to pretend, literally, to weave in front, hence, adorn. See pre-, texture
Explanation
Pretext is a false reason given for doing something. If you catch your mother going through your drawers, and she says she was just tidying up, cleaning was her pretext for snooping. Sometimes a government will try to take away its citizens' rights under the pretext of national security. Though pretext sounds like text that comes before other text, the text you see in it is actually more closely related to the word textile, meaning fabric. Its Latin root meant pretty much "to pull the wool over someone's eyes."
Vocabulary lists containing pretext
Animal Farm
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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Grade 11, List 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“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
Clement’s lawyer said in a statement that the report found against her “on the pretext of ‘perception,’ the source of which was rumour, gossip and innuendo.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 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
Eventually, they flew her to Ahmedabad under the pretext of visiting a sick relative.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
All he did was try to maintain a certain distance, on the pretext of being a hopeless bachelor when it came to matters of the heart.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
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
He is facing his own criminal probe related to cost overruns during renovations of Fed properties - concerns he has called "pretexts".
From BBC ● Jan. 21, 2026
He dismissed the possible threat of indictment over his testimony or the renovation project as "pretexts."
From Barron's ● Jan. 12, 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
He declined Pablo's persuasions to go shooting or walking, and the thousand pretexts made by his father-in-law and his friends, who came to see him at Tejada, to induce him to get out, proved fruitless.
From The Fourth Estate, vol. 2 by Armando Palacio Vald?s
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
