pretense

Rubio added that the Nicaraguan leader and his wife, Rosario Murillo, whom Ortega named as his "co-president" in February 2025, had "abandoned even the pretense of popular consent".

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

But with the documentary, we just were open and there was no pretense.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

Eschewing any pretense of modesty, he says the Kennedy decision was a dead letter.

From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026

But recent scholarship has exploded this pretense and identified hundreds of anonymous tracts and articles that Paine seems to have written in the years before his emigration to America.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

On Smith Island to the south of us there was no high school, not even the pretense of one that we had on Rass.

From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson

Jiaying Chen, 33, admitted to one count of bigamy and one count of obtaining money under false pretenses in a plea agreement filed in Clark County District Court on Thursday.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026

Barofsky said Fain declared under false pretenses that Boyer had been derelict in his duties.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026

Meanwhile, Lori, a young Black woman hired under false pretenses as an assistant, stares mutely.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026

But that news is tempered by the drumbeat of reports from the other end of the airport, where scores of arriving travelers have been detained in frightening conditions and under flimsy pretenses.

From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2025

“I suppose we all come under false pretenses one way or another, don’t we? It was best not to tell me. I probably wouldn’t have let you in.”

From "Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline