Example sentences of "[vb past] be a [adj] man " in BNC.

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1 But from the moment she 'd come downstairs he 'd been a different man .
2 I 've said all along if I 'd been a white man with my ability , I feel I 'd be a wealthy man .
3 Really sad case , that , because he 'd been a fine man .
4 He 'd been a hard man to work for , but he taught Billy everything he knew about that garden and how to take care of it .
5 This would always give Felix a cheeky look , even when he stopped being a black kid and started being a black man .
6 Lucille had left France because she loved Sharpe , whom she knew was a better man than he thought himself to be .
7 The rage that had eaten at his guts for so long , and had launched him at Sergeant Lawrence — who even Jimmy knew was a good man at heart — would not serve him now .
8 Old Eddie Mosse had been a strange man to come out of Paradise Street .
9 They had tried to head these off , but because they could slip into the lanes and wynds of the town , this had proved difficult , Ramsay interrupted to demand whether one of these fugitives had been a tall man in shirt and breeches ; but they said that in the darkness they could not tell .
10 It was revealed that Spiro had been a middle man between the CIA and MI6 over the release of Beirut hostages including Terry Waite and John McCarthy .
11 He had been a young man when she had met him back in 1898 .
12 He had been a young man , quite personable until someone slashed his throat .
13 He had been a violent man and her father had been a man even more violent , it was a pity they had ever met .
14 Shaw spent most of his time on organization and records ; he was rarely involved directly in inquiries but he had been a first-class man on the ground .
15 If that had been a true man he 'd have drunk it again afterwards !
16 She knew from Devlin Parnham that the old count had been a hard man .
17 If Charlie had been a different man , a cultivated man or effeminate or living in a bygone age when tongues were more freely unloosed , he might now have embraced Jack and told him from a full heart how he entered wholly into his joy and would die for his happiness .
18 Their most famous inhabitant had been a crazy man , a drunk , a painter , a man who made no secret of his liaison with a whore .
19 He had been a sick man , chiefly concerned to ensure the undisputed succession of his son and then end his days in peace .
20 I have sometimes gone into it when the King was absent from Delhi and once pretty far I thought , for the purpose of giving my advice in the case of a great lady so ill that she could not be moved to the outward gate ; but a Kachemire shawl covered my head , hanging like a large scarfe down to my feet , and a eunuch led me by the hand , as if I had been a blind man .
21 Once she had tried to describe these feelings to Brian , but , while he had been prepared to admit that her mother was virtually certifiable , he had given it as his opinion that her father had been a remarkable man and a fine artist and richly entitled to his eccentricities : indeed , it had been incumbent on him , Brian had implied , to flout the conventions .
22 Uncle Bill had been a wise man to leave the money to Angela , who had enjoyed it , rather than to this grudging , bitter , scruffy young woman .
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