Under the pretext of being a surgeon he gained entry to the hospital. When interviewed by the
director, he had to fabricate a tale of his medical experience, but he was so adroit at lying that
he got away with it. It was not until the phony “doctor” began to gesticulate wildly with his
scalpel, that a vigilant nurse was able to detect the fraud. In the annals of medical history
there have been a number of such cases.
Pretext is a false reason given for doing something. If you catch your mother going through your drawers, and she says she was just tidying up, cleaning was her pretext for snooping.
Sometimes a government will try to take away its citizens’ rights under the pretext of national security. Though pretext sounds like text that comes before other text, the text you see in it is actually more closely related to the word textile, meaning fabric. Its Latin root meant pretty much “to pull the wool over someone’s eyes.”
Isn’t it a pity a great republic always has to find a pretext to reward its great men.
We need some pretext to arrest them.
It would give you a pretext to suggest to the Queen that she wear your gift.
Under what pretext did you lure her here?
You opened that envelope on the pretext of locating an I. D. When, in fact, it was to, once again, satisfy your curiosity.
So far, it’s eating into barely populated swampland, which we evacuated under the pretext of a chemical spill, but that won’t last much longer.
Someone who is adroit is clever and skillful. An adroit leader will be able to persuade people to go with his ideas. An adroit sculptor can turn a lump of clay into an object of great beauty.
If you’ve ever studied French you know that droit means “right,” both as in “right of free speech” and as in “left and right,” and à droit means both “turn right” and “properly.” Once English people borrowed à droit, they changed the meaning slightly, from doing something “properly” to “doing something well.” You may have heard the expression “surprisingly adroit,” as in, “For a guy whose wife does all the cooking, he is surprisingly adroit in the kitchen.”
these are The only things You’re adroit at.
I notice you very adroitly turned the conversation into an attack on me.
Use vigilant to describe someone who keeps awake and alert in order to avoid danger or problems. When taking the subway, be vigilant about your wallet — always know where it is, or someone might steal it from you.
Vigilant descends from the Latin vigilare, “to be awake, watch,” from vigil, “awake, alert.” If you stay awake vigilantly all night, you’re keeping watch or keeping a vigil. A vigilante (pronounced vij-uh-LAN-tee) is a person who acts outside the legal system to punish crime.
Be alert. Be vigilant.And be aware. Let’s go. What?
That’s why I’m going to be extra vigilant in protecting your children.
It is up to us, every one of us, to remain vigilant in identifying and isolating any potential threat to our stability.