Example sentences of "he [verb] [verb] [prep] first " in BNC.

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1 He has had to gamble on selling before he can buy , that 's why he got rid of first Ray Houghton and then Dean Saunders .
2 When he recalled how he had felt on first seeing her he had to push the sinful thoughts out of his mind .
3 The Frenchman 's dark aquiline features and unsmiling silences made him think of history-book pictures he 'd seen of the warrior heroes of ancient Greece and Rome , and the dismay he had felt at first when their car had struck the Annamese villager had increased his sense of awe .
4 True , he had struggled at first to satisfy his beautiful young bride ; he had been too long a bachelor and too set in his ways .
5 Shelby did n't like Ferrari ; like plenty of others before and after , he had experienced at first hand Enzo Ferrari 's withering contempt for lesser mortals .
6 But what he had taken at first for raindrops on the wagon floor were actually pennies , halfpennies and farthings scattered everywhere .
7 Or so he had thought at first , hearing her voice , looking round the well-furnished rooms , the shelves full of old china figures , in her polished house .
8 It had n't been much of a job after all ; he had thought at first from the sound of it that it might mean travel , but it did n't .
9 He had thought at first that the man was lost and required instructions , but realised after the words had blown away that it was a quiet inquiry for cash .
10 Though he was a college Conservative of a patriotic and nationalist kind , he had shown at first no sign of the bitter and obsessive anti-Semitism that became the hallmark of his speaking and writing .
11 On reaching Port Said , however , the captain declared that Annesley would have to be more respectably attired if he wished to continue in first class .
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