FluentPlex

pretext

/ˈpɹiːtɛkst/ verb C2
  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.

He/she/it pretexts · Past pretexted · Past participle pretexted · -ing form pretexting

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Verb forms

Base form
pretext
He/she/it
pretexts
Past
pretexted
Past participle
pretexted
-ing form
pretexting

From the library

Marseilles is filled with half-pay officers, who are daily, under one frivolous pretext or other, getting up quarrels with the royalists; from hence arise continual and fatal duels among the higher classes of persons, and assassinations in the lower.”
The Count of Monte Cristo, p. 46 · C1
I won’t remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.” The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.
Three Hundred Aesop's Fables, p. 1 · B2
Then, once free, from the day and hour and moment when he was so, he could have but one only thought, which was, to gain Monte Cristo by some means, and remain there alone under some pretext which would arouse no suspicions; and once there, to endeavor to find the wonderful caverns, and search in the appointed spot,—the appointed spot, be it remembered, being the farthest angle in the second opening.
The Count of Monte Cristo, p. 202 · C1
under pretext of trading along the coast, these men, who are in reality smugglers, will prefer selling me to doing a good action.
The Count of Monte Cristo, p. 226 · C1

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Words, meanings, pronunciations and translations from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); how common each word is from wordfreq. Made into this dictionary by FluentPlex.