Example sentences of "an [noun] than a [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | He was surprised to see Mrs Brocklebank and slightly more surprised to see Ben Brocklebank whom he had never absolutely believed in before , thinking him more an excuse than a man , someone Mrs B. sheltered behind when it suited her not to do something . |
| 2 | We then considered its claim to be scientific , humanistic and atheistic ; concluding that it was more accurate to describe it as an ideology than a science , that its humanitarianism was very real yet flawed , and that its atheism was fundamental to an understanding of the ideology . |
| 3 | Someone had called him this more as an insult than a compliment but Francis took a liking to it and you will find salamanders carved all over his palaces . |
| 4 | This is something else that is more difficult with an owl than a falcon . |
| 5 | In many ways , it is more like an owl than a wader , with its rounded wings , nocturnal habits , and adaptations to a woodland way of life . |
| 6 | Strictly speaking Orwell 's book is perhaps less an allegory than a conte philosophique like Voltaire 's Candide or Samuel Johnson 's Rasselas ; Swift 's Gulliver 's Travels is not far off here either , as a source , and it is certain that Orwell profoundly admired Swift , as Waugh admired Voltaire . |
| 7 | For finance is more often an effect than a cause . |
| 8 | At £110 Alfonzo is beyond most piggy-banks , so look on him more as an investment than a bedfellow . |
| 9 | It is undoubtedly true that in this period when new political lordships and principalities were replacing the Carolingian empire , and Europe was recovering from external attacks , the church was far more an upholder than a hammer of kings and other rulers . |
| 10 | He had even spoken — interminably — at the famous meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science , held at Oxford in 1860 , when Huxley allegedly scored his victory over Bishop Wilberforce with the retort that he would rather have an ape for an ancestor than a man who used his privileged position to pronounce on matters he knew nothing about . |
| 11 | Huxley 's retort that he would rather have an ape for an ancestor than a bishop — or words to that effect — has come to symbolize not merely the conflict between Darwinism and the Bible but the victory of science over religion . |
| 12 | An employer has no more power to give orders to an employee than a customer has to demand that a grocer supply goods at a certain price : all a discontented employer can do in practice , just like a customer , is terminate the relationship . |
| 13 | The abbey of Otley on Otmoor was abandoned after three years , in 1141 , as ‘ fitter for an ark than a monastery ’ . |
| 14 | Less like an aircraft than a kettle , |
| 15 | Charles also had around 24 light guns of 1–2 lb [ o. 5–1 kg ] calibre , on field carriages , but , draught horses being scarce , they proved more of an embarrassment than a help . |
| 16 | In the world of education and in the year of the Woods Hole conference , Britain had to content itself with the Crowther Report , which , even at the time of its publication and even more plainly in retrospect , reads more like an epitaph than a prophecy . |
| 17 | Peters , probably the highest paid and certainly the highest profile management guru in the world , is indeed more of an evangelist than a business adviser . |
| 18 | Just , of course , Piers Morrison , but , she decided , he was more of an inconvenience than a distraction . |
| 19 | Johnson , after a moment of being stung at this carelessness , dismissed it as ‘ rather an inconvenience than a loss ’ , and went on to use the incident to defend his views on the second sight . |
| 20 | IT looks more like an obelisk than a hotel , but if you 're looking for the unusual and eccentric , the 218-ft Sway Tower piercing the New Forest skyline could be yours for £1million . |
| 21 | Although I had considerable doubts as to whether Lord Goodman would on the whole be a happier and more contented human being than Mr Goodman , or whether in fact it would not be a prefix that would be more of an incubus than a blessing , vanity as always prevailed . |
| 22 | It 's more like an apple than a plum — an apple for the teacher , to keep him sweet if he was gon na get mad at me . |
| 23 | A reader could make a number of inferences about this passage : Mary is female , more probably an adult than a child ; It is morning ; Mary does not want to get up for some reason ; Mary is in bed ; she lives in a house with a refrigerator ; the house is possibly in North America , and so on . |
| 24 | As is usual in such cases the myth seems to be somewhat remote from the historical facts but , for what it is worth , Wilberforce is supposed to have remarked that : " Whatever certain people might believe he would not look at the monkeys in the Zoological Gardens as connected with his ancestors ' , to which Huxley replied : " I would rather be descended from an ape than a bishop " , which has merits as repartee but is hardly a contribution to science . |
| 25 | He looked more like an ape than a human . |
| 26 | ‘ He is more of an idea than a man , ’ he said . |
| 27 | ‘ He is more an idea than a man . ’ |
| 28 | Golf was mine , though I often found it more of an aggravation than a relaxation . |
| 29 | Suddenly an evil face , more like an animal than a man , looked at us from behind the rock . |
| 30 | It looked more like an animal than a tractor , a long low dangerous thing , crouched forwards with its shoulders hunched . |