Example sentences of "[conj] [vb past] been a [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | The enterprise which had begun to take off in Napoleonic Paris had undoubtedly made enormous progress ; far more was known about the world than had been a generation or two earlier . |
| 2 | She sewed by hand when necessary ; otherwise she whirred the handle of an ancient sewing-machine , that had been a wedding-present to her mother long before . |
| 3 | He smiled as if he knew that had been a struggle to get out but he did n't make it more difficult for her . |
| 4 | She lived in a house down the street at Brampton , a house that had been a pub ; and the name of it was The Case is Altered . |
| 5 | Most of the beeches that had been a feature of Woodbrook had been felled . |
| 6 | Only one train crossed the near-distant bridge at this hour and that had been a night train going nowhere , its carriages empty and its windows dark . |
| 7 | It was the combination of the carrier bag and the boots and the voluminous purple cloak that had been a present from Laura that attracted the attention of the man at the first-floor windows of Loxford Old Rectory , the man who had decided to buy it . |
| 8 | Lyddy had laid out the pearl grey coat and skirt that had been a present from Aunt Emily and a fur coat Alexandra had never seen before , heavy and glossy . |
| 9 | I chewed betel with the barefoot skipper in his wheel-house until , as the old tub began to roll in the outside channel , I realised that had been a mistake . |
| 10 | Or no , she thought , no — for that last , golden day at the girls ' preparatory school , which had coincided with her fifty-first birthday , that had been a joy such as she had never dared to hope for , a once-in-a-lifetime joy . |
| 11 | The New Economic Policy , or NEP , was obviously a reversal of the naturalisation of economics that had been a fact during the period of ‘ war communism ’ , and which Bukharin had lauded in The Economics . |
| 12 | I had wished Nour dead because he would not stay with me , and that had been a palimpsest of desire . |
| 13 | But when she had washed her hair and dressed in a new pair of designer jeans and a silk shirt that had been a Christmas present and which she 'd never worn before — it was n't to Eva 's house that she went but back down into the town , towards the theatre and the Franz Joseph . |
| 14 | ‘ It 's a real medieval castle , that had been a ruin for years , and has now been modernized into a house . |
| 15 | Among the outgoing ministers Alvaro Barreto , the Health Minister , had held senior government posts for 11 years and had been a minister for nine of these . |
| 16 | Miss Barton was 87 and had been a midwife all her working life . |
| 17 | Later in the month , however , agreements were reached which pre-emptied a crisis although discontent in the military remained and had been a factor in Enrico de Melo 's resignation as Defence Minister at the beginning of the year [ for which see p. 37197 ] . |
| 18 | ‘ No , ma'am , only that she died before her time and had been a lady 's maid . ’ |
| 19 | He had contested parliamentary seats in three General Elections and had been a member of Maidenhead Town Council and chairman of its Library Committee . |
| 20 | Before that he had served as Minister of External Economic Relations and Supply and had been a member of the MPRP central committee since 1976 . |
| 21 | Mrs Darrell was in her middle thirties , was tall and statuesque and had been a bit of a beauty in her day . |
| 22 | He was almost 60 years of age and had been a fugitive for 22 years , during which time he had had no permanent home , no source of income and little respite from danger . |
| 23 | Support for Scott could have come from Stanley 's Parliamentary Under Secretary , Henry Baillie , who was a personal friend of Manners and had been a supporter of Young England . |
| 24 | He was of noble Norman birth , had studied at the school of Liège , and had been a clerk of William I in Lanfranc 's time . |
| 25 | She was twenty-two years old and had been a nurse at the Princess Louise Clinic in new Cavendish Street . |
| 26 | I believe she was studying modern dance and had been a pupil of Mary Wigman , or of one of her disciples . |
| 27 | She had once studied to be a concert pianist and had been a pupil of Paderewski in Dresden in the summer of 1921 . |
| 28 | He had also been Form Master of 1B for many years , providing a thorough grounding in Mathematics for many future Old Stopfordians , and had been an officer in the ATC . |
| 29 | Mayhew had written a four-volume work called London Labour and the London Poor and had been an influence on Dickens . |