Example sentences of "he had [verb] a [noun sg] " in BNC.

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1 I had observed with what relish he had improvised a rape — of a Soviet actress — for a scene in one of our novels .
2 He had broken a bone .
3 Omero knew exactly what she meant as he had broken a tooth as a result of eating rock given to him by visitors at Easter , and sometimes it really hurts .
4 He had his back to me , and he had grown a beard , but his hair was still thick and blond .
5 To mitigate his appearance , he had grown a beard — though it was so fine , to conform with custom , that it might have been painted on with a kohl-brush , an impression reinforced by the methodical severity with which the rest of the face had been shaved .
6 Grunte then asked them whether they had heard the one about the Norwegian woman who had bought her son three shoes , having been told he had grown a foot ; a sally which was met by universal groans .
7 He was waiting on the Jackley Road outside a pub called the Ostrich , Kevin 's double in every particular until he had grown a moustache .
8 He had grown a moustache in order to look like Ian Botham and he drove a 1960s Jag like Inspector Morse .
9 He had grown a lot in the last few months .
10 He stopped trembling as quickly as he had begun a moment before and seemed to withdraw down the dark passage to the daydream he was locked in when they first arrived .
11 Fowler , who arrived a few minutes later , was middle-aged ; he had stayed a detective constable ostensibly because he could not pass the examination for sergeant , but his colleagues claimed that he deliberately avoided promotion .
12 He was not , in fact , an exponent of the martial arts , but for a few short but character-forming weeks during a university summer vacation he had boxed a kangaroo called Cobber in a travelling circus .
13 He had to see a man about a gallery . ’
14 The feeling persisted and suddenly , although he knew he was being ridiculous , he felt he had to take a ride into Mansfield to have a look at the site where the old Empire Theatre had once stood .
15 In one scene he had to take a handkerchief out of his pocket , and in the process shower Maggie Smith with nuts .
16 He had to take a number of decisions in the field of immigration and deportation , which infuriated libertarians .
17 He had to take a boat to Miami , and that 's why he give me the keys to Starkisser .
18 Lower down the page he had scribbled a quotation from Shelley : ‘ Life stains the white radiance of Eternity ’ .
19 At the beginning of the previous month , he had given a reading in New York where one observer described him as a " hot ticket " .
20 All too typical , however , was Lord Keith 's remark in 1799 that he had given a lieutenant 's commission to ‘ the Duchess of Atholle 's friend Glen Geary … a heavy dog too ’ , while passing over a brighter but less well-connected midshipman .
21 Here was the women whose father he had unsuccessfully defended , to whom he had given a home and a job , who was supposed to be devoted to him .
22 Finally Mozart was able to report to his father that he had given a concert , and that his takings , before expenses , were 90 gulden .
23 He had given a picture of religion , which represented it as primarily concerned with guilt , with taboos against incest , and as er , representing the origins of civilization in primeval societies like those of the Australian Aborigines , and Freud erm , remarks in the opening pages of Civilization and Discontents that Totem and Taboo was never meant to be a complete theory of religion .
24 He had given a speech earlier in the year on the subject of ‘ Constitution Reform in Trinidad and Tobago ’ , at the end of which he appealed for mass action and now he was testing the dedication and organisational abilities of his P.E.G .
25 ‘ He was n't put on contract because we felt he had to do a bit more to earn one .
26 he had to do a swap did n't he with Shell ?
27 He had to do a double take , bumping into a filing cabinet .
28 I think he laid a joker card and I had a hand card up , so he had to do a kiss my hand .
29 Some time previously , he had discovered a system of cryptography — he called it the ‘ Atbash Cipher ’ — which had been used to conceal certain names in Essene/Zadokite/Nazarean texts .
30 All around him , backstabbing and financial disaster fomented chaos , inside he had discovered a universe of beauty and order .
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