The elaborate excuse he'd concocted about his new job and a time-consuming first assignment seemed a shabby lie now.

We must fabricate more and more elaborate excuses.

And the same holds true for the girls, even when Sylvie writes elaborate excuses to get them out of school.

They must make elaborate excuses because "I don't feel like it" would be considered unpatriotic and would not look good on the corporate resume.

Raye, a black female therapist, tells Tashi, "Religion is an elaborate excuse for what man has done to women and to the earth."

She'd become an expert at inventing elaborate excuses that wouldn't rouse their suspicions, but still it was tough.

Windy had learned to fabricate elaborate excuses for her inability to get the governor to respond to Hammer.

But who needs such elaborate excuses anymore?

The student gave his teacher an elaborate excuse about his dog eating his homework, but she didn't believe it.

He was about to make an elaborate excuse, but then he thought, What the hell?