Example sentences of "had been [adv] [art] [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | But poverty had been just a word , an image on a screen — until now . |
| 2 | When local police were told of two female bodies on the beach , it had been just a nuisance . |
| 3 | One more story about O : he told me ( it was as if he was trying to explain the oddity of his lovemaking to me , as if he was trying to account for or apologise for the way he 'd treated me , or perhaps to reassure me concerning the effect he 'd had on me , I do n't know ) , in the morning he told me that there was one man , this had been just a couple of years previously , there was one man who had summoned him to his bedside to be counted amongst a farewell gathering of lovers , dear friends and great passions . |
| 4 | The chilli also meant that Praeger had been just a wire man with orders not to kill anybody who came at him just blind them and run . |
| 5 | The mainland campaign had been just a foretaste of what might be coming , he said . |
| 6 | The mainland campaign had been just a foretaste of what might be coming in the next two months , said RUC Chief Constable Sir Hugh Annesley . |
| 7 | And for one veteran , from Cinderford in the Forest of Dean , the excitement of coming to London had been just the start of an amazing day . |
| 8 | The Norway disaster had been just an appetizer , it would seem . |
| 9 | But she knew it had been just an impulse — a ‘ strawberry kiss ’ , he 'd called it . |
| 10 | It had been over a year since Katherine had seen him and again she was struck by the magnetism of those coal dark eyes , the indolence of his gestures as he took her hand and playfully brought it to his lips . |
| 11 | In truth , the last time had been over a year ago . |
| 12 | Craig stared into the fire , it had been over a week since he had escaped from the prison , lying in the back of the van , smelling the fresh mouthwatering tang of bread and listening to the clip clop of the horses ’ hooves . |
| 13 | It was already past midnight , and the performance had been over an hour and a half . |
| 14 | It had been scarcely a quarter smoked ! |
| 15 | How last year the crop had meant nothing to him at all ; how , without understanding , he had walked about the harbour and warehouses of Episkopi , and the misuse of the Order 's cargo of sugar had been simply a matter noted and used as a playing-counter . |
| 16 | The seduction that had followed had been both a homage and a revenge ; an attempt to control someone who exercised an authority over him that defied analysis . |
| 17 | There had been rather a mystery as to why he should have died at that particular time . |
| 18 | There had been rather a lot of funerals at Low Birk Hatt and they were n't inexpensive . |
| 19 | Earlier in 1973 , the matches against the New Zealanders had been rather an anti-climax to their tour , with the second spoiled by rain , but no one doubted that they were now a permanent addition to the summer . |
| 20 | Darren had been dead a couple of months ; I had fallen out with my father and I 'd been in London for most of the summer , staying with Aunt Ilsa and her long-term companion , whose only name appeared to be Mr Gibbon , which I thought made him sound like a cat for some reason … |
| 21 | He had been dead a week before they realized he was n't breathing . |
| 22 | ( I 'm pretty certain I never believed that one , I mean the guy had been dead a week , for Pete 's sake . |
| 23 | Membership of the ILP had been largely a formality for the remaining four-fifths of the original group , though some active ILP members like Dr Alfred Salter and Emanuel Shinwell were among those severing their connections with the party . |
| 24 | George did n't bother to explain the process by which he had deflected the first demand — that Maxim go round to Century House by himself — by a counter-offer of Number 10 ( ‘ As it 's a Saturday , we could use the Cabinet Room ; think how that would look in your memoirs ’ ) — or one of his clubs , naming the one that had been effectively the HQ of the Intelligence Service in the heady days of World War II , and finally agreeing on this no-man's-land . |
| 25 | By November 1917 , when the battle ended , there had been nearly a quarter of a million casualties . |
| 26 | She 'd lived without carpets for the first few weeks and it had been nearly a year before she 'd been able to ditch her old and undersized curtains . |
| 27 | It had been nearly a year ago , when the postman had delivered a letter postmarked Venice to the little cottage in Wales she had shared with her grandmother . |
| 28 | Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk , making a public apology for Ukraine 's part in the massacre , acknowledged for the first time that Babi Yar had been primarily a massacre of Jews , and commentators noted that the ceremony was also a way of emphasising the government 's insistence on minority rights in Ukraine ( where 500,000 Jews still lived ) . |
| 29 | The London period had been primarily a test of willpower and improvisation . |
| 30 | For , in its great days , particularly in the age of the Antonines in the second century , the Roman empire had been primarily a civilization of towns . |