Example sentences of "[adv] [vb past] been a [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Her life hitherto had been a preparation — she recognized that now . |
| 2 | Getting it home had been a struggle , but she was a determined soul , |
| 3 | The body in its stiff ungainliness , beginning already , or so it seemed to his over-sensitive nose , to emit the first sour-sweet stink of decay , yet had an inalienable dignity because it once had been a man . |
| 4 | Lurching into it , with one part lumbered with unlovely council tower blocks up the hill , while nearer the river the developers had arrived , and where once had been a network of tiny streets harbouring some of the most professional criminal families in South London , there were now several expensive blocks of flats : expensive because they faced the river and looked sideways to the old Royal Palace of Greenwich with the trees and slopes of the park behind . |
| 5 | She visited Kitty , wishing the old woman really had been a witch and then she could have solved the riddles which would not leave her in peace . |
| 6 | Despite his apparent desire , matching the sudden irrational flaring of her own treacherous libido , he still suspected her of having designs on the family fortune , and she would n't be at all surprised to discover that his attempt to kiss her just now had been a sort of test . |
| 7 | He returned to London from Lancaster in 1862 without job or income , sensing that his life so far had been a failure . |
| 8 | Her only brush with the topic so far had been a visit to Mortimer 's Hole at Nottingham Castle . |
| 9 | The journey so far had been an eye-opener . |
| 10 | Underneath had been a midget sitting on the shoulders of a tall black man . |
| 11 | ‘ The police turned up convinced there 'd been a riot . |
| 12 | Which had apparently been a a steam There had been a steam engine turning this er mill crushing mill and er er I remember there was a name in in this engine it was Queen of the Valley . |
| 13 | FROM the way Soviet soldiers sometimes carry on , you would think they had not heard there had been a change in Germany . |
| 14 | There had been — yes , she was sure there had been a boy , a long time ago , that would be . |
| 15 | Dr Ian Field , the association 's secretary , said it was prepared to accept there had been a misunderstanding . |
| 16 | The restaurant had been double booked and when the two parties had met there had been a scene akin to the opening of World War Three until Frau Nordern , at her most imperious , and with the additional , strategic advantage that her husband was a state official and the opposition merely clerks from the Centrum store , cowed the manager and routed the clerks . |
| 17 | ‘ I told you there had been a struggle . |
| 18 | But it did n't take a genius to guess there had been a woman involved , someone with whom to share the dream of Rocamar . |
| 19 | There was a feeling there had been a time when you needed both , but for the future it would help in general , and offer much better leadership if you were to create one body , and since you 're statutorily obliged to have a J C C , why not make it , actually make it work , so it meets more often , and it actually actively involves erm , er , er , er , at the political level , players at the political level . |
| 20 | After the case , the airport authorities issued a statement saying they were not even aware there had been a breach of security and that the matter was the responsibility of the airline , Wardair . |
| 21 | ‘ Later we were told there had been an incident at the Hilton and were asked to move all our guests away from the windows . ’ |
| 22 | For a laugh one night she and the other helpers got the children up at 4 am and told them there had been an eclipse of the sun . |
| 23 | Another function of a work diary could be to substantiate more staff or accepting fewer patients , by demonstrating how efficiently nurses had worked and that staying late had been a necessity . |
| 24 | The timetable for leap-frogging them forward had been a masterpiece of staff work , but — as not infrequently occurs to the end products of the thorough German military mind — one small omission arose to defeat it . |
| 25 | Whereas all else had been a matter of pleasantries , he was ribald . |
| 26 | It was not and never had been a question of wages . |
| 27 | He explained that there never had been a bottle of perfume , but he had made the first call in front of his wife who was now quite happy because she thought her husband had merely left her birthday present behind , not , as he had actually done , completely forgotten her birthday . |
| 28 | ‘ Summerchild , ’ he could be saying , briefly and flatly , as if there never had been a case . |
| 29 | This took effect on and from Monday September 26th , the last passenger trains actually running on September 24th as there was , and never had been a Sunday service . |
| 30 | He was led to believe there never had been a brother . |