Example sentences of "may [adv] [vb infin] [be] a [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Triton , the largest satellite of Neptune , goes round the planet in the opposite direction to Neptune 's other moons , and may originally have been a small planet in its own right which was captured by Neptune 's gravity . |
| 2 | Churchmen must always have been aware of family loyalties , and when these became involved in politics there may often have been a strong temptation to give active support . |
| 3 | There may even have been a certain temperamental affinity between Baden-Powell 's Scouting philosophy and the restless energies of Hooliganism , and he was even so outrageous as to recommend the Hooligans to the National Defence Association as ‘ the best class of boy ’ : Predictably , his remarks invited the characteristic reversal of the problem , when a member of the National Defence Association asked : |
| 4 | In the last decade , as we have seen , conventional retail credit has kept more or less in line with changes in the volume of consumer spending ; there may even have been a slight decline . |
| 5 | There may even have been a whole series of such usurpations , but the original replication process must have been sufficiently simple to have come about through what I have dubbed ‘ single-step selection ’ . |
| 6 | From its size , the knife must have had a very specific use and may even have been a surgical instrument . |
| 7 | This may well have been a contributory factor in the prevalence of death in child-birth . |
| 8 | Poseidon 's power was at this early time far greater than that of Velchanos : he received large-scale sacrificial offerings at Pylos , and may well have been a major deity on Minoan Crete too . |
| 9 | Nevertheless , Meyer 's stalking-horse challenge in 1989 may well have been a necessary prerequisite for the substantive challenge in 1990 because it broke the psychological barrier against mounting a challenge when the party was in office . |
| 10 | However the front end of the Ballymena triple failed to produce the same consistency in the second half of the game , otherwise it may well have been a different story . |
| 11 | As we have already noted , he may well have been a militant nationalist who did not shrink from violence . |
| 12 | Nevertheless , given the one-roomed hovels many lived in at that period , there may indeed have been a real improvement . |
| 13 | Sex may therefore have been a necessary prelude to the evolution of multicellular organisms . |