Example sentences of "was [verb] a [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | With the declaration of the Schuman Plan in May 1950 , European union was to acquire a new momentum and dimension , one that would proceed on a narrower front with the involvement of only a few countries , and in policy terms with a much more specific focus than that held by those who dreamed of European political federation . |
| 2 | In his youth , his first ambition was to take holy orders ; his second was to acquire a thorough knowledge of medicine . |
| 3 | Concurrent with these military developments the British aircraft industry was waging a losing battle with the Americans for a large share of the civilian passenger and freight markets . |
| 4 | At his feet their five-year-old , Wu , was waging a ferocious battle between two armies of miniature dragons , their tiny power packs making them seem almost alive . |
| 5 | ‘ I was maintaining a tactful silence . ’ |
| 6 | Supposedly he was in disgrace for an affair with a female student ( the AFPFL , and particularly the Communists , were strictly puritanical ) but he was preaching a stiffer line against the British than any of the others . |
| 7 | He believed that Paris was seeing a forward surge in the arts . |
| 8 | I was very proud of having got movement back in my second leg and was twiddling my toes , but he thought that he was seeing a bloody ghost . |
| 9 | The vamp was soon turning into a lady again though , and by the third song , a moody version of the classic Little Anthony and the Imperials hit ‘ Tears On My Pillow ’ , the audience was seeing a sophisticated side to Kylie too . |
| 10 | I was seeing a different Tom again . |
| 11 | She had dropped stitches continually in her knitting ( she was knitting a yellow angora sweater for Victoria ) and started whenever the shop-bell jangled or the parakeet muttered a few words to itself . |
| 12 | His lawyer said the unnamed woman was demanding a great deal of money . |
| 13 | I was demanding a big rise in salary , just to prove my worth ; and Andrew was refusing to give it to me , as a matter of principle . |
| 14 | ‘ All that remained was to kill a few hours in town , so I went to visit an old friend . |
| 15 | Umberto , Alejandro 's laziest groom , was holding tightly on to her , while Raimundo , who was wearing a leather apron to protect his Gaucho pants , his little eyes glinting with pleasure and cruelty , was attaching a long lead rope to her headcollar . |
| 16 | England 's one fitness doubt tomorrow concerns Phillip DeFreitas , who was resting a sore elbow yesterday , but otherwise their major problem is whether to play both their spinners . |
| 17 | The position might be more delicate if , say , a central purpose of the exchange 's action was to affect a particular non-member , or the way in which it was carrying on its business . |
| 18 | I went in the belief that I was encouraging a modern renaissance of the Egyptian theatre . |
| 19 | For example , he identifies Debord as the source of Godard 's innovations : ‘ Indeed , well over a decade before Godard 's Vent d'Est , Debord was producing a revolutionary , materialist ‘ counter-cinema ’ . ’ |
| 20 | The business became well established and , by the early 19th century , was producing a wide range of blotting papers . |
| 21 | In 1988 , I was producing a major women 's conference at the Barbican and we needed a big bank of flowers . |
| 22 | The moralization of public life , under pressure from evangelicals , was producing a new language of politics and an insistence that men holding public office should outwardly subscribe to respectable standards of personal conduct . |
| 23 | The Spanish Civil War was producing a stronger antagonism to Fascism and the National Government than had previously existed in the Opposition . |
| 24 | Within two years of the investment the company , realizing that it could now offer customers more custom-built specifications , was producing a considerable range of products from the new machines . |
| 25 | He was angry that the next day 's Guardian was to carry a damning review of Etruscan Pots Reconsidered , and more angry that this was common knowledge . |
| 26 | Peter Davies , the 1988 winner of the silver arrow , was using a composite bow in order to have a better chance of winning , but next year he intended to shoot longbow for he thought this was really a longbow tournament . |
| 27 | ‘ One time , back in the Metaltronix days , I got a call from a violinist who was in one of the Philharmonic orchestras , and she was using a Perfect Connection preamp for her electric violin . |
| 28 | Long before humans devised the sniperscope , this strange fish was using a similar surveillance system . |
| 29 | He was using a modern style of movement therefore the rise and fall of his design had far greater dimensions and therefore greater emotional content , His dancers had to parallel the sonorities of Fauré 's solemn ritual of mourning . |
| 30 | She worked that one out using the combined thought that J. Arthur had to mean the movie mogul J. Arthur Rank and that what her brother really was doing was using a convenient form of rhyming slang . |