Example sentences of "had been [to-vb] [art] [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Her earlier fears had faded and she thought how foolish she had been to let a ridiculous fancy disturb her happiness . |
| 2 | Some believed indeed that the original intention of Soviet Mediterranean deployments had been to induce a negotiated withdrawal of the United States ' Sixth Fleet . |
| 3 | The aim of the programme had been to divide the big farms into smaller plots and to redistribute the land to the workers , but it had bred uncertainty among landowners and entrepreneurs many of whom , unwilling to part with their property , had delayed investment . |
| 4 | As Bishop Brinton said , it had been to restore a rightful heir to his kingdom and to defeat tyranny that the campaign in northern Spain had been fought in 1367 . |
| 5 | Principally the visit had been to see a senior boy with lifelong problems who had suddenly become unmanageable and would have to be admitted to an asylum , but while there he had been asked to assess Anna Beckett , a child who had moved him strangely . |
| 6 | The father was distraught ; he had appealed to the Prime Minister , had been to see the Foreign Secretary , he had been in fact everywhere , and finally asked Max Rayne whether he could come to see me . |
| 7 | One of his ideas had been to take a small naval party with him who would attempt to scuttle a ship in the harbour mouth . |
| 8 | The initial aim in forming the DUP had been to create a united unionist party which would be as orthodox in its constitutional position as the Unionist Party of Craig and Brookeborough . |
| 9 | The basic logic of her programme since 1979 had been to reverse the main lines of her country 's history as it had developed since the Second World War . |
| 10 | The delay had been to give the second team time to gain position . |
| 11 | The king 's original intention , goaded by the Pope 's refusal to grant him a divorce , had been to effect a greater lay control of an uncertain church . |
| 12 | One of the more pleasant surprises , on a protracted visit to The Towers in January , had been to meet the new bride at the Hall . |
| 13 | Franco believed that one of General Primo de Rivera 's mistakes had been to establish the provisional nature of his regime at the outset . |
| 14 | There was , however , this to be said : there had been political involvement under Miall in the 1840s but this had been to achieve a narrow , sectarian goal — disestablishment . |
| 15 | And Jonathan would never have recognised her as the girl to whom he had become engaged , the easygoing girl whose only concern had been to have a good time , however much money it took . |
| 16 | There had been only one obvious course of action — and that had been to raise the necessary sums by selling the family estate . |
| 17 | While the combined effect of a number of cases had been to limit the audi alteram partem principle , it would be misleading to say that it had been wholly forgotten . |
| 18 | In a news conference on Jan. 18 , 1990 , Borja announced that inflation had been brought down to just over 54 per cent in December 1989 after reaching a record 99.1 per cent in March ; a further objective of the administration had been to reduce the accumulated annual inflation rate to 30 per cent for 1989 . |
| 19 | The loan had been to buy the second-hand Sierra , and then had been topped up to cover repairs required by the M.O.T. ; and then increased again when Sara 's Mini had just died on her , expired in the middle of the village with 110,000 miles on the tombstone . |
| 20 | Propagandists could always argue that the fact that so many misfortunes had befallen England since the Revolution confirmed how wrong it had been to dethrone the rightful sovereign . |