pretext

Preposition: of

• war: It is about attempting to use the pretext of war against Slobodan Milosevic to dominate the whole of the Balkans.

Converse of object

• invent: Behold, he invents pretexts against me; he counts me as his enemy.
• create: Reports of large Yugoslav troop movements around Kosova have created a further pretext for NATO to repeat its threat to launch military action.
• find: He must have found some pretext for giving her an injection.
• seek: The church in this village had been harassed by local authorities, who may have been seeking a pretext to arrest the church leaders.
• provide: Often the van will have the name of a shop or utility company to provide some pretext for its being in the area.
• become: These were genuine enough but became the pretext for excessive equity valuations, fueling a general economic boom.

Preposition: for

• invasion: The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion.
• war: Weapons of mass destruction offered little more than a convenient pretext for a war conjured up to serve a multiplicity of ends.
• intervention: On the contrary their aim is to perpetuate instability in the region and provide the pretext for further intervention in the future.
• attack: If true its a much better pretext for an attack on Iraq than the tenuous link to the anthrax scare.
• action: There may be another pretext for an action - the Iraqi weapons program.
• aggression: The question is does the other side want to get to the same conclusion or are they looking for a pretext for aggression?

Adjective modifier

• flimsy: Reliability Cancel meetings frequently on the flimsiest pretexts that you can.
• plausible: It did not finish the job and, according to the FFH, gave no plausible pretext to justify interrupting the work.
• false: Was taking the country to war on a false pretext not an error of judgment?
• slight: Many people to whom the Colonel owed a grudge were, on the slightest pretext, incarcerated in the dungeon.
• convenient: Weapons of mass destruction offered little more than a convenient pretext for a war conjured up to serve a multiplicity of ends.
• mere: Perhaps the truth is that the film's brutal violence and misogynistic attitude are mere pretexts for its condemnation.

Modifies a noun

• call: Agents can freely make pretext calls to criminal elements by using caller ID spoofing.