Example sentences of "not [adv] [adv] a [noun sg] as " in BNC.
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1 | The italicised utterance is not so much a paraphrase as a summary . |
2 | They went up another narrow passageway , not so much a passage as a mere slit between houses , and came out suddenly into open space . |
3 | Equally regrettably , they suggest that she who ( presumably ) approved them is not so much a Pharisee as a Philistine : one , moreover , who has been impressed by too many drives down The Bishop 's Avenue , where Hampstead 's temples to new money are built , en route to the Finchley constituency . |
4 | Sir : You refer to the Prime Minister ( 4 October ) as ‘ not so much a Pharisee as a Philistine ’ , owing presumably to her supposedly vulgar tastes . |
5 | That word ‘ supposed ’ may anger Jewish readers , but Yad Vashem is not so much a memorial as a political statement . |
6 | ‘ She is not so much a stargazer as someone who is interested in power — other people 's power , which is possibly the only reason she was attracted to David Mellor . |
7 | This is not so much a criticism as a view shared by many , including MPs and key civil servants at the Welsh Office . |
8 | ‘ Prince ’ is not so much a person as a persona , a space , in which he can become anything he or we want him to be . |
9 | He had not worked out tactics to deal with what was not so much a surrender as a bid to form an immediate alliance . |
10 | Jaromil is not so much a character as a type , and is not unlike the Shelleyan poet in Shaw 's Candida , Eugene Marchbanks . |
11 | Catherine , Mary noted , was especially quick to challenge George 's generalisations by reference to a local situation : Mary herself kept not so much a watch as a guard over Hope 's words . |
12 | The third ‘ qualification ’ to the simple arms-race is not so much a qualification as an interesting point in its own right . |
13 | This was not so much a service as a lot of clowning about to biblical themes . |
14 | The Greek purchased a bag of sweets , well , not so much a bag as a twist of newspaper , distributed some of the sweets among his retinue of small boys and gave the rest to his guide . |
15 | Doubtless that is not so much a reality as an ideal — and one for which due respect is conspicuously lacking in the ethos of the STV . |
16 | ‘ Scotland in Europe ’ is not so much a project as an accomplished fact . |
17 | Within his own country , he is not so much a Leviathan as a Gulliver figure hemmed in and tied down by a complex network of restraints that must be thrown off if he is to be more than a helpless giant in the White House . |
18 | Not so much a sound as a sensation that a whole spectrum of sound was missing . |
19 | Bowe poses not so much a riddle as two straightforward questions : Does he have the heart , stamina and experience to match Holyfield 's over 12 rounds ? |
20 | The fourth is not so much a method as a means of disguising the reality of the other three from the public . |
21 | To many Churchill was not so much a buccaneer as a straightforward pirate , a political outcast who skated on thin ice deliberately to keep himself in the public eye , a man who polished brilliant and wounding phrases that tacitly suggested himself as the alternative should his jeremiads turn out true . |
22 | Yet that something not so much a thing as an eye . |
23 | He became not so much a propagandist as a radio ‘ character ’ who had been created by a darker comedy than Tommy Handley 's ITMA . |
24 | Not so much a joke as a rebuke , perhaps . |
25 | ‘ Not so much a book as a scream ’ , commented a reviewer in The Spectator , fairly . |
26 | Not so much a mother as a series of snapshots from an old family album . |
27 | Like John after him , he was not so much a tinker as a brazier , a mender and purveyor of household utensils , with a forge beside his cottage . |
28 | The return of rock means not so much a crashdown as a return towards rock , a departure from planet pop to a self-sufficiency that matches pop . |
29 | Scholars of Confucianism are agreed that it is not so much a religion as a guide to a system of political organisation , and as time went on , it too fell victim to divisions and disputes . |
30 | Christiana 's journey with her four children and her friend Mercy to find her husband Christian and the Celestial City has been described by Ronald Knox as not so much a pilgrimage as a walking-tour . |