Example sentences of "had been [adj] [noun sg] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | There had been black bitterness , and there had been a great aching void for longer than she cared to remember now . |
| 2 | If these had been real Tag Heuer watches they 'd have been worth thousands , but in fact at around 25 pounds each they 're a rip-off . |
| 3 | It had been utter surprise and defeat , casualties grievous . |
| 4 | Defying the need to slump her head dejectedly on to her arms , to howl long and hard that every minute of this evening had been utter hell and that all she wanted now was to curl up safe and warm in her own bed . |
| 5 | These were papers , filling two volumes , left unpublished at Hunter 's death , which Owen dedicated to the Royal College of Surgeons , where from 1837 he had been Hunterian Professor . |
| 6 | For goods , there had been tariff-free trade in manufactures since 1972 , but non-tariff barriers would now be removed . |
| 7 | To dismiss this comment simply as Bridgeman being a poacher turned gamekeeper would be to miss the point , which is that the war had allowed the Conservatives to become gamekeepers again , whereas from 1902 to 1914 there had been genuine concern that they might be permanently banished from the estates of power . |
| 8 | There had been genuine fear on some of those people 's faces when she had mentioned Martin 's name , a fear she could appreciate after what had happened to her last night , but it had n't shaken her determination to get to the bottom of the story . |
| 9 | Silence fell as Creggan and the other eagles that had been listening thought about what Minch had told them . |
| 10 | For several decades Britain 's policy had been splendid isolation , and that Europe 's most powerful nation should emerge from that isolation by concluding an alliance with Japan was seen in Japan as a triumph . |
| 11 | Another relative and rector of the Patrimony was James , son of John Odoline , a cousin , and count of Andria , who had been papal marshal and commander of Innocent 's troops in Sicily in 1200 – 1201 , to whom he granted the fortress of Ninfa on the southern border . |
| 12 | 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 . |
| 13 | Literature — above all fiction — has never been a notably gentlemanly profession in Britain , as Dickens and H. G. Wells illustrate ; and the Bloomsbury group had been upper middle-class rather than aristocratic . |
| 14 | Before I had been lifeless jumble of miscellaneous body parts but now I was Frankenstein 's monster , shocked by lust into coherence and action . |
| 15 | He had been warm-up man for the Pope on his tour of the Republic ; he was always on Irish radio and television . |
| 16 | While the ebb and flow to this point had been absorbing stuff , the ensuing capitulation was nothing short of astonishing , far more dramatic and conclusive than that suffered by England two years ago ; but still never totally unexpected on a pitch showing wear and uneven bounce in equal measure . |
| 17 | The idea had arisen for Frank through his location and questions that had come up about muons ; Sakharov had been developing fusion in secret and picked up the notion because he would have been on the lookout for any papers about fusion , of whatever sort . |
| 18 | He had been wanting reassurance for a long time and he had n't been getting any . |
| 19 | Deirdre joined the literature committee in 1985 after the closure of Craiglockhart College of Education , where she had been principal lecturer in English , and so began a second career . |
| 20 | Her high-handed personal style , it appeared , had created widespread hostility to her , which surfaced in the course of the trial , especially when it became known that there had been blatant intimidation of witnesses . |
| 21 | She could remember the incident quite clearly , although the circumstances surrounding it had vanished into oblivion , beyond recall of any form of analysis : it had been early afternoon , so clearly not a party incident — maybe they had had lunch together ? — and she had been anxious about picking up children from school . |
| 22 | Previously , March 25 had been New Year 's Day with attendant ceremonies leading to a climax on April 1 . |
| 23 | Tax and bill collectors faced more practical confusion , not only with a ‘ re-timed ’ calendar but because it had also been decided to start the legal year on January 1 instead of March 25 , which had been New Year 's Day since the twelfth century . |
| 24 | The first few months had been sheer bliss . |
| 25 | It had been sheer vanity that had made Fran call at the exclusive boutique on the way home from work , and now as she studied the dress she wondered if that vanity had bordered on madness ! |
| 26 | Azerbaijan accused Armenian forces of shooting down the helicopter , while Armenia claimed that the cause had been poor weather . |
| 27 | His Picassos had been Blue Period , the Saltimbanques , a strange Boy with a Pipe , crowned with flowers . |
| 28 | Also , there had been increasing disquiet in the early 1970s about the lack of clear and ‘ blanket ’ control of demolition , particularly on the part of amenity societies , but also on the part of local authorities who were concerned at some of the effects of commercial enterprise . |
| 29 | From September 1992 onwards there had been increasing criticism of the government not only from the BSP but from the MRF and also from President Zhelyu Zhelev [ see p. 39105 ] . |
| 30 | Since the news in early March that the leading party in the Basque parliament , the Basque Nationalist Party ( PNV ) was , controversially , in a process of negotiation with ETA 's political wing , Herri Batasuna , there had been increasing speculation that the Spanish government might be considering negotiating a settlement with more moderate elements within the ETA leadership . |