英和和英

語源

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”).

発音

• IPA: /ˈpɹiːtɛkst/
• 韻: -iːtɛkst
• ハイフネーション: pre‧text

名詞

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, 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, 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.

派生語

動詞

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, 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.

同意語

• blag (UK)

参照

Further reading

• 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.