Example sentences of "best a [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | … one can not begin to understand a number of contemporary English novelists unless one realises that to them Joyce 's way is at best a cul-de-sac . |
| 2 | Mr. Pannick , for the Secretary of State , reminds us that a prisoner serving a sentence of life imprisonment has no right to be released on licence ; he has at best a hope that the Secretary of State will release him in the exercise of his discretion under section 61(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 . |
| 3 | There are numerous difficulties in making an historical study which depends entirely on written evidence , which may not represent the experience of the mass of children , and is at best a distillation of the views of the literate classes . |
| 4 | It was not merely a matter of correction here and there — these were ashes ; at best a discord such as some chained bear might pound on a piano . |
| 5 | The over-used saying ( sometimes incorrectly attributed to Confucius ) that ‘ one picture is worth more than ten thousand words ’ ( see Stevenson , 1948 , for its actual derivation ) is at best a half truth . |
| 6 | Lewis was subtle enough to see that this was at best a half-truth , and perhaps he was beginning to sense that what Tolkien 's friendship had to offer him was something rather more important than a regress to me nursery . |
| 7 | When Springhall writes that adolescents gave their allegiance to ‘ society ’ , this is at best a half-truth . |
| 8 | I told myself that my intention was maintenance of the status quo , but this was at best a half-truth . |
| 9 | Clearly such arrangements were not ideal — they could be exhausting for children and were at best a compromise among the law , the need for education , and the reality of poverty . |
| 10 | It is at best a standstill and does not measure up to the problems of dereliction and rising unemployment . |
| 11 | Although dualistic it was quite different from Platonism : cosmic time was not the moving image of eternity but ‘ at best a caricature of eternity , a defective imitation far removed from its model ’ . |
| 12 | This is so , because economics is at best a technique that is both partial and complementary to other disciplines . |
| 13 | But a track record of success is at best a measure of past management expertise in fair times . |
| 14 | Like the legendary biographies of the Romantic poets , realism is at best a by-product of art and not its raison d'être . |
| 15 | The Estlins hoped that at best a merger of the BFASS and others could be achieved . |
| 16 | When he plays Sibelius with the New York Philharmonic tomorrow , a rare appearance here , they expect at best a draw . |
| 17 | Without it , we would have been left with the feeling that natural selection is only a destructive process , or at best a process of weeding-out . |
| 18 | With the current growth of interest in Briggs ' work , it is intriguing to note that Briggs only ever published one paper on Sanskrit which , at the time , was poorly received and thought to be a cul-de-sac or at best a side road . |
| 19 | It emerges from the above discussion that man-machine allocation of function is at best an oversimplification and it may lead to the neglect of some key features of human performance . |
| 20 | More likely it was the knowledge that , for all Dysart 's manifest charm and proven ability , he had a wife who was at best an adulteress , at worst a traitor ; either Minter 's dupe or his co-conspirator . |
| 21 | It is at best an outline of the main points in a rather complex field . |
| 22 | The Prince Napoleon-Jerome had from the inauguration of the Empire been a constant , and public , critic of his cousin 's policies , proving himself to be at best an embarrassment , at worst a threat to the regime . |
| 23 | The janissaries , who were once the elite corps of the sultan 's army , had degenerated by the end of the eighteenth century into an unruly and lawless rabble , who were at best an embarrassment and at worst a threat to their rulers . |
| 24 | Yet this can be a difficult concept for many professionals who regard clients as at best an intrusion on , and at worst an irritation in , their working day . |
| 25 | For most of the leaders among the Owenites the distinction only showed itself in their recognition that the Bill had done nothing for working people ; that since the prime need , as they saw it , was to act directly to remove the evils of a system which grievously oppressed the lives of working people , the Bill had been at best an irrelevance , at worst a distraction . |
| 26 | At the time of his appointment to PFF , the Command was just getting used to GEE , thought originally to be a bombing aid but really at best an aid to navigation . |