Example sentences of "[adv] [art] [noun] than a [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Less a question than a statement . |
| 2 | It was perhaps less a prayer than a wish , in its final form ; but by the time the Queen went to bed that evening , it looked almost as if she had been heard . |
| 3 | It was black , the sort of black that is less a colour than a graveyard of colours , and there was a highly-ornate runic inscription up the blade . |
| 4 | My rejection of death was less a denial than a postponement of the recognition of its ultimate reality . |
| 5 | Bolshevik influence before the war was less a cause than a consequence of the radicalism of the Russian working class . |
| 6 | No less a personage than a Member of Parliament was the victim , doubtless the accident report attributed the tragedy to driver error , and the outcry followed . |
| 7 | Strictly speaking Orwell 's book is perhaps less an allegory than a conte philosophique like Voltaire 's Candide or Samuel Johnson 's Rasselas ; Swift 's Gulliver 's Travels is not far off here either , as a source , and it is certain that Orwell profoundly admired Swift , as Waugh admired Voltaire . |
| 8 | The effect is more a portato than a staccato . |
| 9 | She ate quickly , partly because she was so used to eating alone now that it seemed more a practicality than a pleasure , and partly so that the servants might have their own dinner at leisure in the kitchen . |
| 10 | Partly because I want to experience life in as many phases as I 'm capable of — i.e. I 'm more a writer than a moralist , I suppose . |
| 11 | This syllabub was more a drink than a whip , a diversion for country parties and rustic festivals . |
| 12 | It was now quite clear that barrage balloons were much more a hindrance than a help to London . |
| 13 | Now wo n't you stop risking money on horses , which is more a worry than a pleasure ? |
| 14 | It is impossible to imagine their ever retaking control , but at a philosophical level the estrangement of the party from some of the old landed values still seems more a separation than a divorce . |
| 15 | Everything was rosy at the Red House , which Dante Gabriel Rossetti , Morris 's close friend and mentor described as ‘ more a poem than a house … but an admirable place to live in too , . |
| 16 | Where there had been two legal institutions there was now only one ; and the new composite institution was far more a trust than a legacy . |
| 17 | Johnson 's legislative record was enormously impressive , but the Great Society remained more a vision than a reality . |
| 18 | ‘ More a shock than a surprise . |
| 19 | For the last seventy-three years the Bishop of Durham was a scholar ; five bishops in succession ranging from one who was among the leading minds of Europe to one who was more a publicist than a scholar but who still had academic interests . |
| 20 | In fact , unknown to the traveller , who was no more a geologist than a naturalist , he was about to step over the geological phenomenon of two prehistoric ages crunching into each other as noticeably as jagged waves hitting a large smooth stone . |
| 21 | Her lips come together in what is more a grimace than a smile . |
| 22 | McLaren boss Teddy Mayer as much as admitted at the end of 1975 that he thought Emerson wanted to move — or that he was in personal trouble of one kind and another — but the official news reached Hunt before it got to the team , and got to Hunt through Domingos Piedade , an eccentric figure close to the cheerful groupie Googie Zanon , a wealthy ( textiles ) Italian aristocrat whose support has been crucial to many drivers at critical points in their career , then ‘ manager ’ to Emerson and now to Ayrton Senna — a fringe career from which Domingos , hugely personable , but also often more a talker than a doer , has made a more than reasonable living . |
| 23 | The horse made another noise , more a groan than a grunt this time , and , as his stride faltered , Kelly knew that she had made a serious mistake . |
| 24 | He was the one who brought me up , more a father than a grandfather . |
| 25 | The Thirty Years War was more a symptom than a cause of processes already well advanced . |
| 26 | The problem is not simply one of quantity ; that is more a symptom than a cause . |
| 27 | Yet , like the impact of newcomers on village society generally , they are more a symptom than a cause of the sense of loss which the local population often feels . |
| 28 | It was more a punishment than a kiss and she hated it , but she hated even more the first faint stirring in her blood . |
| 29 | A party of schoolchildren are shushed by their teacher before they enter what is more a sanctum than a room in a museum . |
| 30 | There is , first , the relationship between rich and poor nations , which may be conceived in terms of neo-imperialism and dependency ( but in that case imperialism has to be seen in a wider perspective than that which treats it exclusively as a stage in the development of capitalism , important though this latter process is ) , or in terms of the current preoccupation with a ‘ North-South dialogue ’ , which is today more a confrontation than a dialogue . |