Example sentences of "he [was/were] [adv] the first " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | He was probably the first deaf man in the world to do so . |
| 2 | He was probably the first ‘ weather-man ’ , using the medium of the broadsheet instead of television and radio . |
| 3 | To return to Griffith 's experiments , Griffith was not the first man to draw strong glass fibres but he was probably the first man to do it in a systematic way and to provide a plausible explanation of the results . |
| 4 | He was probably the first man to solo 8a on French rock ; made the first winter lone ascent of the South Face of the Aiguille du Fou ( scene of Alan Rouse 's famed injury during an earlier , summer , solo ) and also made one of the most prestigious ascents in the area with his solo of Divine Providence — Patrick Gabarrou 's 1984 desperate on the Grand Pilier d'Angle buttress on Mont Blanc . |
| 5 | He was probably the first to include the Gauls in a history of Italy , though Fabius Pictor who fought against them in 225 B.C. was bound to have said something about their characteristics . |
| 6 | At Waterloo , he was again the first to leave the train . |
| 7 | Charles got the impression that perhaps he was n't the first to have followed this particular route . |
| 8 | He was not the first to do this . |
| 9 | Jamie knew that wherever he was in the wild world , far from his home , he was not the first Scotsman to hammer at the gate . |
| 10 | Although this incredible business trip made the young Venetian merchant the most famous of all business travellers he was not the first to trade with China . |
| 11 | Certainly he was not the first to have been struck by the idea , and in his first book on leys he quotes a reference from 1882 in which G.H. Piper notes an alignment of several sites in Herefordshire . |
| 12 | He was not the first to have been deceived by flaws of telescopic lenses . |
| 13 | He was not the first of his family to serve the English crown , because his kinsman , Michel de Fiennes , had acted as chancellor to the Lord Edward during his stay in Gascony in 1254–5 . |
| 14 | He was not the first , or the last , Home Secretary to be apprehensive of the clamourous demands he was likely to face . |
| 15 | Louis Pasteur had observed it in 1877 , but even he was not the first to do so . |
| 16 | He was not the first to be interested in Rome ; certainly Theophrastus and perhaps Callias of Syracuse preceded him . |
| 17 | He was not the first black to play in a tournament sponsored by the American P.G.A . |
| 18 | Blake suspected that he was not the first person who had asked himself that question or had come to the same irrational conclusion . |
| 19 | For at least one of these anecdotes he had a written source ; he was not the first to see the confrontation between Clovis and Alaric in religious terms . |
| 20 | He was rarely the first to suggest what should be done ; when the others spoke he listened with half an ear , made up his mind what course to follow and followed it without hesitation as though no other were possible . |
| 21 | He was also the first man to use the word ‘ Americanism ’ in 1781 . |
| 22 | ‘ He was also the first sportsman to become a celebrity . |
| 23 | Hervey , a Breton , was appointed bishop , the first of a long series of members of the English royal court to be provided with a Welsh see : he was also the first bishop in Wales to come under the authority of an English archbishop . |
| 24 | He was also the first sprinter in Britain to use starting blocks . |
| 25 | He was also the first person to use coal gas for lighting purposes . |
| 26 | He was also the first to investigate fields with finitely many , unc elements , where p is a prime and |
| 27 | And none of the Sicilian tyrants before Agathokles ( end of the fourth century ; he was also the first Sicilian to call himself basileus , king ) put his own name on his coinage — contrast the HIΠ-issue of Hippias of Athens ( B. V. Head ( 1911 ) Historia numorum , Oxford , edn 2 , p. 377 ) , admittedly a coinage struck in exile at Sigeion , c.500 BC , but one which shows that the idea of a coin with an individual 's name on it was at least thinkable that early . |
| 28 | He was also the first to prepare blue mottled soap . |
| 29 | He was also the first chairman of the colleges ' committee set up after the 1962 report of the commission on the relationship between the colleges and university , chaired by the first Baron Bridges [ q.v . ] . |
| 30 | He was also the first to print five more Erasmus titles in English or Latin , the latest being Sir Thomas Chaloner 's translation , The praise of folie , 1549 ( STC 10500 ) . |