The phrase "by pretense" is correct and usable in written English.
It is used when you are trying to describe how something is being done with a false show of intent or purpose. For example: "He tried to gain her trust by pretense."
Lukacs, well aware that his subject is often clouded by pretense, writes with an eye for pungent detail.
Millions now live in one country and work in another, some crossing a border on foot each day, others putting on fake accents and telemarketers' headsets, migrating by pretense.
Before the big make-over, Santa is a manipulated mythology tainted by pretense and greed.
As Smith observes, "From the fairy tales our parents told us to the propaganda our governments feed us, human beings spend their lives surrounded by pretense..
Accustomed to living glamorously in the spotlight, Noël Coward conducted his private affairs, in the words of writer Rebecca West, "with an impeccable dignity … which was reticent but untainted by pretense".
For all the fuss, undeniably, we are an honorable, hospitable people, operating on the neutral ground between individuality and community, moving with a posture unworried by pretense, at a pace that for better or worse is undefined by outside expectations.
Who wants to get a job on false pretenses, by pretending that it's moral or ethical to refuse to hire people because they had the bad judgment to get laid off?
Prosecutors contend that Mr. Marshall committed theft by false pretenses by tricking his mother into agreeing to sell a Childe Hassam painting by making her think she was broke.
The Intelligencia -- those whose posts are so above your head that you're both intimidated and awestruck by the writer, if not put off by their pretense.
Later popes were not convinced by the pretense.
Instead, it should be accompanied by a pretense of humility.
