Pretext

Definition: Pretext

Pretext

Noun

1. Something serving to conceal plans; a fictitious reason that is concocted in order to conceal the real reason.

2. An artful or simulated semblance; "under the guise of friendship he betrayed them".

Date "pretext" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1385. (references)

Domain	Definition
Literature	Pretext A pretence. From the Latin prætexta, a dress embroidered in the front worn by the Roman magistrates, priests, and children of the aristocracy between the age of thirteen and seventeen. The prætexta'tæ were dramas in which actors personated those who wore the prætexta; hence persons who pretend to be what they are not. Source: Brewer's Dictionary.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Synonyms: Pretext

Synonyms: guise (n), pretence (n), pretense (n), stalking-horse (n). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Dissuasion	Verb: pretend, plead, allege; shelter oneself under the plea of; excuse; (vindicate); lend a color to; furnish a handle; Noun: make a pretext of, make a handle of; use as a plea; Noun: take one's stand upon, make capital out of, pretend; (lie).
	Pretense; (untruth); put off, dust thrown in the eyes; blind; moonshine; mere pretext, shallow pretext; lame excuse, lame apology; tub to a whale; false plea, sour grapes; makeshift, shift, white lie; special pleading; (sophistry); soft sawder; (flattery).
	Noun: pretext, pretense, pretension, plea; allegation, advocation; ostensible motive, ostensible ground, ostensible reason, phony reason; excuse; (vindication); subterfuge; color; gloss, guise, cover.
Untruth	Pretense, pretext; false plea; subterfuge, evasion, shift, shuffle, make-believe; sham; (deception).
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Pretext

English words defined with "pretext": Flam ♦ Pretexture, putoff. (references)

Etymologies containing "pretext": Pretex. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Pretext" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses.

Romanian (blind, color, colour, cover, excuse, ground, guise, handle, mask, occasion, pretence, pretext, veil).

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	It's movement which uses the the pretext of the free movement of goods and men to accelerate the orders of the empire, which stangles us to satisfy its ambition. (Vercingétorix; writing credit: Jacques Dorfmann; Rospo Pallenberg)
Movie/TV Titles	4Tokens II - On the Pretext of Collecting Folksongs (1995)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Gyorgy Lukacs and the Literary Pretext (American University Studies, Series XIX: General Literature, Vol 5) (reference) Pretext Book (reference) The Book of the Self: Person, Pretext, and Process (reference) The Hauser Pretext Manual (reference) The Light at the Center: Context and Pretext of Modern Mysticism (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Title	Author	Quote
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	The warden spoke of it to the cure, and the two, under some pretext, made the colonel a visit.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Civil Liberties	Bangladesh	The Government sometimes uses bans to prohibit rallies for security reasons, but many independent observers believe that such explanations usually are a pretext. (references)
	Yemen	Some journalists allege that the Government financed the second al-Shoura in order to create a pretext to shut down the outspokenly critical original al-Shoura. (references)
	Bulgaria	There were periodic reports of police using lack of local or national registration as a pretext to confiscate signboards and materials, detain or expel religious workers, and deny visas or residence permits to foreign-national missionaries. (references)
Economic History	Russia	Some local officials, however, have used the law as a pretext to restrict religious liberty. (references)
	Afghanistan	Faced with a deteriorating security situation on December 24, 1979, large numbers of Soviet airborne forces, joining thousands of Soviet troops already on the ground, began to land in Kabul under the pretext of a field exercise. (references)
Human Rights	Vietnam	He rarely receives visitors, and police have shut off his phone and fax (since May 2000), and his Internet, and e-mail (since June 1999). Some persons are held under conditions resembling house arrest without known legal pretext. (references)
Minorities	Switzerland	In one instance related to rightwing extremism, police monitored the gathering of 50 such extremists, who met in the Canton of Valais under the pretext of celebrating a member's birthday. (references)
Political Economy	France	Signs of economic slowdown and a series of highly publicized layoffs have given the Communist and Green parties a pretext to renew pressure on the Socialists to pursue more traditional leftist policies. (references)
Women	Kuwait	Several cases of rape involved the culprits impersonating police or security officers and luring women to isolated areas on the pretext of arresting them. (references)
Worker Rights	Kyrgyz Republic	Often women were trafficked through deception, and were lured abroad, at times by means of newspaper advertisements and under the pretext of legitimate employment. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Speaker	Term	Phrase(s)
James Madison	1809-1817	How long their arbitrary edicts will be continued in spite of the demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has been given by the United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to induce a revocation of them, can not be anticipated.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Pretext" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Pretext" is used about 207 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	207	21,147

Expressions using "pretext": give as pretext ♦ make a pretext ♦ on the pretext of ♦ on the pretext that ♦ put forward as a pretext ♦ under the pretext of ♦ under the pretext that. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "pretext"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		pretekst (come off, stalking horse). (various references)

Arabic		‏حجة (allegation, argument, case, document, excuse, instrument, plea, pretence, pretension, proofing, reasoning), ‏ستار (cover, curtain, curtain wall, screen), ‏عذر (alibi, excuse, justification, plea), ‏ذريعة (cloak, expedience, expediency, plea, pretence, pretension, resource, stalking horse, subterfuge). (various references)

Bulgarian		претекст (alibi, color, colour, come off, excuse, peg, plea, pretence, pretense, put off, salvo, stalking horse, subterfuge), предлог (excuse, handle, plea, preposition, pretence, pretense). (various references)

Chinese		藉口, 借口 (excuse), 借 (by means of, excuse, to borrow, to lend). (various references)

Czech		záminka (blind, excuse, handle, pretense), výmluva (excuse, tergiversation). (various references)

Danish		påskud. (various references)

Dutch		smoesje, smoes, dekmantel (mask). (various references)

Esperanto		preteksto. (various references)

Farsi		مستمسک , عذر (Alibi, Excuse, Peg, Plea, Purporst, Subterfuge), دستاویز (Document, Excuse, Voucher), بهانه اوردن (Alibi), بهانه (Alibi, Evasion, Excuse, Fetch, Fiction, Mask, Peg, Plea, Pretense, Purporst, Subterfuge). (various references)

Finnish		veruke (evasion, excuse, subterfuge), varjo (cloak, shade, shadow, under pretence of, under the cloak of friendship), tekosyy (subterfuge), estely (excuse, objection, pretence). (various references)

French		prétexte (pretence). (various references)

German		scheingrund (spurious reason), Vorwand (excuse, stalking horse). (various references)

Greek		πρόσχημα (blind, excuse, guise, pretence, stalking horse), πρόφαση (excuse, pretense). (various references)

Hebrew		תוא� �" (excuse, occasion, opportunity, subterfuge), תרוץ (excuse, pretence), על�" (cause, circumstance, ground, occasion, reason), אמתל�" (excuse, stalking horse), אמשל�". (various references)

Hungarian		kifogás (alibi, caveat, censure, evasion, exception, excuse, kick, mask, objection, plea, pretension, remonstrance, shabby excuse, stalking horse, stricture, subterfuge). (various references)

Indonesian		sambilan (part-time, side line), elahan (excuse), elah, dalih (excuse, preter). (various references)

Italian		pretesto (cloak, color, colour, evasion, excuse, handle, occasion, opportunity, peg, plea, pretence, pretense), appiglio (foothold, handhold, handle, hold, toehold). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		盾 (buckler, escutcheon, shield). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		たく�'�" (excuse, plea), たて (buckler, escutcheon, height, length, shield, sword battle), つけたり (addition), かたく (burning house, domicile, premises, pretense, this world of suffering), いいがかり (commitment, false accusation), いわく (history, past, story, to reason, to say), い�"ね�" (connection, destiny, fate, origin), りゆう (motive, reason), じへい (evils of the times, excuse), � し (broth, dupe, excuse, festival car, front man, pretense, soup stock, stock). (various references)

Korean		구실. (various references)

Manx		leshtal (apology, excuse, mitigation, plea, pretence), jannoo leshtal jeh. (various references)

Papiamen		preteksto. (various references)

Pig Latin		etextpray

Portuguese		pretexto (allegation, cover, covering, cover-up, excuse, ground, handle, mask, refuge, sham, veil). (various references)

Romanian		pretexta (feign, pretend, sham), pretext (blind, color, colour, cover, excuse, ground, guise, handle, mask, occasion, pretence, veil), scuzã (apology, excuse, pardon, plea, pretence). (various references)

Russian		предлог;отговорка. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		pretekst, izgovor (elusion, excuse, loophole, loop-hole, plea, pretence, pretense, pretension, pronunciation). (various references)

Spanish		pretexto (blind, cloak, excuse, handgrip, handle, loophole, out, peg, plea, pretence, pretense, stalking horse). (various references)

Swedish		förevändning (excuse, pretence, pretense, put off). (various references)

Turkish		bahane (allegation, blind, cavil, cloak, cop out, cover, evasion, excuse, guise, peg, plea, pretence, putoff, rise, salvo, shift, stalking horse, subterfuge, veil). (various references)

Ukrainian		відмовлятися (abdicate, abjure, abnegate, back down, backtrack, cast off, discard, forgo, forsake, forswear, jettison, lay aside, lay down, nill, part with, pass up, recede, refuse, relinquish, renounce, repeal, retract, throw aside, throw out, throw over, waive, withdraw), привід (alibi, cause, cloak, grievance, handle, occasion, pretence, pretense, salvo, subject). (various references)

Vietnamese		lý do không th� nh thật, lý do (cause, consideration, motive, peg, reason, wherefore), cớ thoái thác, cớ (cause, matter, motive, wherefore). (various references)

Welsh		esgus (excuse). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	obtentu, occasione, occasionem, occasiones. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "pretext": pretexted, pretexting, pretexts. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Pretext" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Parkertex, partex, praetexta, prete, pretexd, Protext, prtext, pwethent, retext, ypertext. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "pretext" (pronounced prē"te'kst)
5	-t e' k s t	hypertext, subtext, videotext.
3	-k s t	affixed, angst, annexed, axed, boxed, climaxed, coaxed, context, faxed, fixed, flexed, flummoxed, indexed, intermixed, mixed, next, nixed, outfoxed, overtaxed, perplexed, relaxed, sexed, taxed, teletext, text, transfixed, unmixed, untaxed, vexed, waxed, xeroxed.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "e-e-p-r-t-t-x"
	-1 letter: expert, petter.
	-2 letters: exert, peter.
	-3 letters: peer, pert, pree, prex, rete, text, tree, tret.
	-4 letters: ere, pee, per, pet, ree, rep, ret, rex, tee, tet.
	-5 letters: er, et, ex, pe, re.
	Words containing the letters "e-e-p-r-t-t-x"
	+1 letter: pretexts.
	+2 letters: extirpate, hypertext, pretexted.
	+3 letters: ciphertext, expatriate, extirpated, extirpates, hypertexts, pretexting.
	+4 letters: ciphertexts, expatriated, expatriates, expectorant, expectorate, extrapolate, preexistent.
	+5 letters: expectorants, expectorated, expectorates, exteroceptor, extrahepatic, extrapolated, extrapolates.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.