Example sentences of "[vb past] never been a [adj] [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | She 'd never been a raving beauty , it was true , but at the moment she looked a wreck . |
| 2 | She 'd never been a proper mother and I hated the way she was acting with that man . |
| 3 | I had never been a prime minister before . |
| 4 | Puzzled , for Dermot had never been a great correspondent , Kelly read : |
| 5 | There had never been a great deal of money , but no one had ever gone hungry and the feelings of warmth and love between the members of the family had more than made up for the lack of luxuries . |
| 6 | He had never been a great wine drinker , but on every visit to the Mayfair Hotel in London ( which he used often ) he was presented with a complimentary bottle of wine . |
| 7 | It had never been a homogeneous state , more a collection of dynastic holdings , and its ruling caste never subscribed to the liberal notions of the Enlightenment or the French Revolution . |
| 8 | She adopted an abrasive stance towards the European Common Market , for which she had never been a strong enthusiast . |
| 9 | Robert had never been a healthy man and found it difficult to earn a living . |
| 10 | Again the Chancellor comes to be usually a lawyer : Lord Shaftesbury under Charles II was the last Chancellor who had never been a practising lawyer . |
| 11 | Such signs of relative forgiveness on the part of the leaders he had persecuted so relentlessly in the past , particularly Deng Xiaoping , offer perhaps the clearest insight into Chen 's career : he had never been a political force in his own right but merely a faithful interpreter and executor of Mao 's will . |
| 12 | Certainly Lloyd George had never been a doctrinaire free-trader . |
| 13 | Hickery Holler came into the world 6 weeks ago , but the sad little spider monkey had never been a bright glint in his mother 's eye . |
| 14 | If the pain which he had whenever he had anything the matter with his finger had always been a throbbing pain , and the pain caused by anything the matter with any other part of his body had never been a throbbing pain , then now , on experiencing a throbbing pain , he would naturally associate it with his finger . |
| 15 | In 1879 Crookes sold the Quarterly Journal ; it lived on until 1885 , becoming in its last years a monthly-but it had never been a leading journal , and general scientific reviewing never caught on . |
| 16 | He said Mr Gilbert 's twin role had never been a satisfactory arrangement . |
| 17 | Until researchers from the National Radiological Protection Board published their figures there had never been a national survey on the potential risks . |
| 18 | Although he had been a member of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate he had never been a true man of Congress . |
| 19 | Indeed it had never been a favourite pastime of hers . |
| 20 | He had never been a happy sightseer and until his work was done , until Harry Lawrence 's killer was identified and caught he could n't see himself playing the tourist at the Changing of the Guard , or the Tower of London , even Poets ' Corner which he had longed to see , as a passionate student of English poetry … that would have to wait . |
| 21 | Just think , there had never been a little baby on the earth . |
| 22 | I had always found visiting my mother-in-law difficult ; it had never been an easy relationship . |
| 23 | He had never been an impressive priest — dispensing sacraments , sermons and whist-drive announcements with the same patient ennui , like a weary shopkeeper who has forgotten why he ever started to sell . |