Example sentences of "she had [been] a [adj] [noun sg] " in BNC.
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1 | She had been a regular person once , but that had been before the voices started up in her head , before the dead woman got out of her rocking chair , before the preacherman reached into her mind and gave it a sharp twist … |
2 | In any case , even if she had been a skilled charmer it was not possible to allure somebody who slashed back at you like a master swordsman and drove the point in . |
3 | If she had been a religious person she would have put it down to retribution for her sins , but she had lost whatever faith she had had in her years as the Madam of Dublin 's most fashionable brothel . |
4 | She had been a battered baby , grew up in a succession of foster homes , and then married a man who regularly beat her up . |
5 | He held her against him , nursing her as though she had been a small child , while looking down into her face . |
6 | ‘ Gross exaggeration , ’ Fabia laughed , but could n't deny that she had been a great fan of the Czech composers , and still was . |
7 | ‘ She had been a lifelong friend of the Abrams , ’ Mr Burke said . |
8 | When she had been a tiny child , and Fenna had still been a small , manageable and undemanding dragon she had , often spoken of him , to her mother who had grinned , to her grandmother who had smiled , and to her schoolteachers and friends , who had laughed indulgently . |
9 | Her senior by fourteen years , she had been a splendid nursemaid and even after marriage , while rearing her own family , Edna had still managed to do part-time cleaning and a weekly wash in the Tremayne household . |
10 | Personally , I think it was a merciful release both for my aunt and for my Uncle Félix , seeing that she had been a helpless invalid for so long . |
11 | Just as she had been a conscientious dancer , she now became an equally conscientious needlewoman . |
12 | Still , she thought , bracing her shoulders , if she had been a real mother she would have had to endure many such problems with a teenage daughter . |
13 | She had been a major influence in my life , and helped me through the rough patches . |
14 | A case of gamekeeper turned poacher , given that she had been a fast-stream entrant to the Treasury , much of whose function it is to resist that sort of demand . ’ |
15 | She had been a loyal colleague for many years , respected by parents and children alike , and since the accident had proved a trusted friend and companion . |
16 | She had been a clerk-receptionist phone-answerer-teamaker and she had got the job through her uncle Bob who was as near to being a friend of Thomas Walby 's as it was possible to be . |
17 | Sad thing was she had been a noted dancer in her day . |
18 | She had been a former child actress , making her film debut at the age of four , and at twelve she appeared in the London production of The Sound of Music . |
19 | She had been a good wife , too . |
20 | She had been a good companion ; she did not deserve this from him . |
21 | She had been a good woman . |
22 | Behavioural precursors of schizophrenia included a poor emotional rapport in the psychiatric interview , and parental observations that he or she had been a passive baby , with a short attention span in childhood , and often impolite behaviour , while school reports often noted that the child was isolated , uneasy about criticism , easily upset , and disturbed the class ( Parnas et al. , 1982 ) . |
23 | She had been a little brick , Doreen . |
24 | She had been a little waif then , in her Yorkshire homespun . |
25 | She had been a top model — her legs alone were insured for a five figure sum and he had enough hanging on him to bankrupt a smaller company . |
26 | Dana told me she had been a tougher nut for Daine to crack , and had had her mind scrambled and unscrambled several times . |
27 | She had been a true sister to Ryan . |
28 | Left wing Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside from 1974–87 , she had been a senior officer in the agricultural workers union and was chair for eight years of the Campaign Group of Labour Mps . |
29 | Toddler walks with her had been a superhuman test of patience as she squatted by every puddle , slowly stirring the water with sticks , and picked up myriads of stones , tenderly brushing them free of earth and inserting them with infinite laboriousness into pockets already grinding with pebbles . |
30 | Penry 's wonderful , gratifying desire for her had been a healing fire which had cured her forever of the wounds dealt by Guy . |