pretext

From Latin praetextum (“an ornament, etc., wrought in front, a pretense”), neuter of praetextus, past participle of praetexere (“to weave before, fringe or border, allege”).^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹiːtɛkst/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːtɛkst
• Hyphenation: pre‧text

pretext (plural pretexts)

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

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:pretext

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

   • 1598, Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Euery Man in His Humour. A Comœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 21:

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

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 69:

     "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."

   • 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:

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

   • 1996, Jacques Gernet, translated by J. R. Foster and Charles Hartman, A History of Chinese Civilization‎^[1], 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 580:

     The smallest incidents were to serve as pretexts for demonstrations of force and for demands for indemnities and reparations which increased China's subjection.

   • 2012 May 27, Nathan Rabin, “The Simpsons (Classic): ‘New Kid on the Block’ [season 4, episode 8; originally aired 12 November 1992]”, in The A.V. Club‎^[2], archived from the original on 18 September 2020:

     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.

pretext (third-person singular simple present pretexts, present participle pretexting, simple past and past participle pretexted)

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.

   • 1903 September 28, Henry James, The Ambassadors, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC:

     […] 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 […]

   • 1970 August 12 [1969 January 15], John Womack, Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution‎^[3], New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 261:

     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.

• blag (UK)

• Social engineering on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “pretext”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “pretext”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Learned borrowing from Latin praetextum.

pretext m (plural pretexts or pretextos)

1. pretext

   Synonym: cobertora

• pretextar

• text

• “pretext”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025.

Borrowed from French prétexte.

• Audio:

  (file)

pretext n (plural pretexte)

1. pretext

• prætext (archaic)

Borrowed from Latin praetextum. First attested in 1617.^[1]

pretext c

1. (archaic) pretext

   Synonyms: förevändning, svepskäl, täckmantel, undanflykt

   • 1705 September 6, Robert Petre (the younger), edited by August Quennerstedt, Robert Petrés dagbok ifrån år 1702 till slaget vid Pultava (diary), published 1901, page 83:

     […] om deri skulle finnas något gewehr och amunition, som war emoth accord, men under prætext der af togz bårt, wad dem anstod och blänkte för deras ögon, […]

     […] if there should be any rifle and ammunition therein, who were against accord, but under the pretext of which was taken away, what suited them and shone before their eyes, […]

   • 1897 December 7, August Strindberg, edited by Torsten Eklund, August Strindbergs brev. 12. December 1896–augusti 1898 (letter), Till Emil Kléen, page 231:

     Skalden, hvilken har journalismen som näringsfång borde medan han är jemförelsevis ung göra en studieresa till Europens hufvudstad, Paris; t.ex. under pretext studera journalism och telegrambyråkratism.

     The poet, who has journalism as a livelihood, while he is comparatively young, should make a study trip to the capital of Europe, Paris; for example under the pretext of studying journalism and telegram bureaucracy.