Example sentences of "was [adv] [verb] a [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | Though he was n't to know this , it was a gesture of defiance that was slowly becoming a sexual need . |
| 2 | One way to discourage such demands was secretly to salt a shallow anchorage with a bag of rotted chicken heads which would quickly draw a sinuous and evil-looking pack of otherwise harmless sand sharks that would twist menacingly under our keel and persuade the paying customers to seek the deeper darker waters offshore . |
| 3 | At the beginning of the 1980s , Mozambique had a National Health Service ( NHS ) that was successfully implementing a primary health care ( PHC ) philosophy . |
| 4 | Great Yarmouth was successfully awarded a long term contract with Shell Expro , while Falkirk and Milford Haven increased their market share in support of the onshore petro-chemical industry . |
| 5 | Aston was eventually offered a temporary place in a hostel occupied exclusively by men , many of whom have been recently released from prison or who have drug problems . |
| 6 | I think a number of us were becoming very concerned indeed that this was eventually becoming a political area and this this is dealt with in this way |
| 7 | He was effectively granted a blank cheque to conduct a war without Congressional authorization for up to 90 days . |
| 8 | By a resolution passed by 305 votes to 36 , with 41 abstentions , Gorbachev was effectively given a free hand to dictate the process of economic reform by decree , to manage the state budget , and also to supervise law and order . |
| 9 | He was widely considered a strong supporter of further European integration . |
| 10 | His mind was gleefully revolving a fresh piece of office gossip . |
| 11 | ‘ I was merely calming a spoiled child . |
| 12 | I thought at first that he was merely taking an open-air path to his own bedroom , but he went straight past the open door at the end of his sleeping car , and straight on past the next car also . |
| 13 | I was merely making a boring journey by river and Luxor happened to be at the end of it . ’ |
| 14 | We may generously assume that Hippel did not really believe what he said , but was merely putting a rhetorical flourish on a widely-accepted piece of wisdom . |
| 15 | He was obviously making a great effort to cope with a load of premature responsibility . |
| 16 | Niklaus had just swarmed up Resurrection , taking a bit of a flyer in the process , being into the British way of things , and was obviously having a great day out . |
| 17 | Many of the others — broke and sickened by the attitude of their non-refusenik colleagues , who included most of the staff of the Sun and the News of the World — experienced personal traumas as they struggled with the difficulties of what was obviously becoming a futile protest . |
| 18 | He was gently coaxing an old lady on to the duckboards , and his elaborate care and concern made Meredith think better of him . |
| 19 | Joey Kelly has become something of a racing machine for he was only beaten a short head at Enniskillen last Saturday , then won at Dromore on Wednesday before being turned out again yesterday . |
| 20 | My impression was that I was only getting a small part of his attention , that he was profoundly preoccupied and that the one thing he wanted was to be left alone . ’ |
| 21 | She gave him a rather languid finger wave and just as she disappeared under the wing float , he then realised she was only wearing a black sporran . |
| 22 | She was only wearing a threadbare old cloak she had seized from the hallway as she came out , but she was quite warm after the exercise and she did n't want to go in , alone , back to the remnants of her mother 's angry despair . |
| 23 | If he wanted her , even if it was only to satiate a temporary need , even if she was only a substitute for the woman he really wanted , then she would oblige , because he had reduced her will-power to nothing . |
| 24 | Blacker Miller , still then Foreign Minister [ see above ] , was invited to address the meeting formally ( whereas San Román was only given a private hearing ) , and described the outcome as " adequate " . |
| 25 | He was only spared a long jail term when 24-year-old Lynn agreed to drop assault charges providing he went into therapy . |
| 26 | It was only sold a short while ago , and the family were hoping to move to this house in Eynsham , but the sale fell through . |
| 27 | ‘ I was only making a pleasant remark comparing this place to the big city . |
| 28 | Both were directed towards the formalist reading of literary texts , and some anglophone academics tried to minimize the strangeness of French imports by saying that la nouvelle critique was only offering a new version of what had long been familiar in the Anglo-American academy . |
| 29 | She was suddenly feeling a great deal safer . |
| 30 | If the base drive of the switching transistor was suddenly removed a large induced voltage would appear between the transistor collector and emitter , causing permanent damage to the drive circuit . |