The phrase "a pretext of" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when referring to a false reason or excuse that is given to justify an action or behavior.
Example: "He used a pretext of needing to work late to avoid attending the party."
Alternatives: "a guise of" or "a facade of".
Hunting for his double gives him what he calls a "pretext" of connecting when he is far from home.
But the drawing was inspired by an Indiana case in which four girls savagely murdered a 12-year-old schoolmate on a pretext of sexual jealousy.
Worse, the I.M.F. board does not seem to feel the need to establish even a pretext of legitimacy for the powerful No. 2 position; everyone takes for granted that the board will rubber-stamp whomever the Obama administration nominates.
On a pretext of avenging her treatment, the Frankish kings Childebert II and Guntram attacked Septimania and sent a fleet to help the Suebi; they were repulsed by Leovigild.
Is the country paying too high a price for its policy?Critics fear that any challenge to an already authoritarian government is gradually being outlawed under a pretext of criminalising the promotion of so-called "genocide ideology".
This is what he meant: Using a pretext of rooting out Islamist insurgents, Burma's military, together with Buddhist villagers, is terrorizing the Rohingya, emptying and razing their villages, and attempting to hound them out of the country.
The skeptics worried that the crisis was mutating into a virulent strain of delusion, a pretext for the preservation of the old status quo.
It was used in early 20th-century Russia and in Nazi Germany as a pretext for persecution of Jews.
And Georgia argues that Russia handed out the passports as a pretext for annexation of the territory.
The pattern of the two filmmakers was set: Truffaut told a story, while Godard used a story as a pretext for flights of manic invention.
Urging Pakistan to repeal its blasphemy law, the pope said the legislation was being used "as a pretext for acts of injustice and violence against religious minorities".
