All 3 Uses of
pretext
in
1984, by Orwell
- If she had worked in the Records Department it might have been comparatively simple, but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in the building the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going there.†
p. 110.5
- The heat and the manual work had even given him a pretext for reverting to shorts and an open shirt in the evenings.†
p. 148.9 *
- Although he had a good pretext for coming here, he was haunted at every step by the fear that a black-uniformed guard would suddenly appear from round the corner, demand his papers, and order him to get out.†
p. 168.2
Definition:
a false reason presented to hide the real reason for doing something