No. 3,198 in Chinese
借口
"Excuse" or "pretext."
In a sentence
他总是找到各种借口不去参加会议。
He always finds various excuses not to attend meetings.
In this sentence, '借口' is used to mean 'excuses', referring to reasons given to justify not doing something, typically considered invalid or insincere.
你不能以工作的繁忙作为忽略健康的借口。
You cannot use being busy with work as an excuse to neglect your health.
Here, '借口' is used in the sense of an 'excuse', indicating a reason brought forward to justify an action or inaction.
她说她生病了,这似乎只是个借口罢了。
She said she was sick; this seems to be just an excuse.
In this case, '借口' refers to an assumed excuse supplied to evade a responsibility, hinting it might be fabricated.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “借口” in actual Chinese podcasts.
Find “借口” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays Chinese podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into 中文, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Chinese books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).