Example sentences of "[vb past] only [prep] [be] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | The taxi driver , who asked only to be known as Terry , became the next victim of the knifeman . |
| 2 | His spirits lifted only to be dashed half an hour later when the hoarseness reappeared . |
| 3 | He expected Charity to scoff at such weakness , but surprisingly , she seemed only to be concerned with how that could be arranged . |
| 4 | He seemed only to be able to breathe shallowly . |
| 5 | By February 1940 he had drafted two out of the five sections , and was describing the poem as a successor to " Burnt Norton " — he was still not at all sure of its worth , however , since he seemed only to be imitating himself . |
| 6 | ‘ Then I woke up one summer morning-it was still dark , the birds were just starting their dawn chorus , and on that particular day there seemed only to be crows — and I felt very cold . |
| 7 | The next thought came only to be dismissed : like a man crossed in love ? |
| 8 | On at least one occasion , a general telephoned only to be told by an aide that she was just rushing out . |
| 9 | True to style , Mr Pozsgay claimed only to be a sympathiser of the movement and not its instigator . |
| 10 | The Ivorian government claimed only to be providing humanitarian assistance to refugees from the conflict . |
| 11 | The kind Julian had offered their house and on an impulse she 'd accepted , relieved only to be free from the demands of the parish . |
| 12 | Even if the courts purported only to be concerned with the fairness of the process of policy making and not with the substance of the policies made , it is very difficult to draw a sharp distinction between process and substance : complaints about process are usually , at bottom , complaints about substance — ‘ if we had been treated fairly , the outcome would have been different ’ . |
| 13 | His goal remained , as it had always been , partnership with Britain within the empire , and he required only to be convinced of British sincerity in working towards this goal to accept the principle of reaching it by easy stages . |
| 14 | Typically , the sterling area was assumed a ‘ good thing ’ , the justification of which needed only to be made to foreigners ( especially Americans ) . |
| 15 | Shafts sunk below it however , had to be pumped or baled , though the water needed only to be raised to Deep Adit , through which it ran to the open fell side . |
| 16 | The completed cross-cut now meant that water needed only to be lifted to the level and allowed to run out to day . |
| 17 | As the rock shaft reached the Deep Level horizon , a link was driven to the East Shaft , and from then on , debris from the continued sinking and seepage needed only to be lifted to that height . |
| 18 | And yet Craig meant only to be kind , reassuring , and gradually , Hari 's sobs subsided . |
| 19 | MGM was not quite as happy with The Crowd ( 1928 ) , which was held back for a year and temporarily given a happy ending and which proved only to be as Kine Weekly predicted ‘ a sound box office success ’ rather than a runaway winner . |
| 20 | At a depth of 16 metres he came across a larger than life size bronze foot sticking out of the sand that proved only to be the tip of a large area of buried statues dating from the fifth century BC to the fourth century AD . |
| 21 | They rang the various commercial recorded lines which hinted they were offering sexual innuendo , which proved only to be glamour girls talking about dieting or holiday-making . |
| 22 | While figures for the year showed an increase in real growth of 2.9 per cent , business investment was down 3 per cent , consumer spending down 0.1 per cent and the growth elements appeared only to be in home purchases and government spending . |
| 23 | Emilia wished only to be heard . |
| 24 | If Edwin did not mind , she wished only to be left alone . |
| 25 | In a sense the music existed rather for the participants than the hearers ; thus they wished only to be helped , or nudged , not commanded , when in danger of error . |
| 26 | The television had not defeated her because nothing had ever gone wrong with it , and it had only to be switched on and off or , scarcely more complicated , over . |
| 27 | The Shetlanders were the only children I have ever known who had only to be asked once to perform in public , without even token resistance they took to their fiddles and played . |
| 28 | Jurors had only to be ‘ of sufficient intelligence and respectability ’ , but in 1 868 a financial test was instituted in order to exclude low-status white-collar workers . |
| 29 | It had only to be channelled . |
| 30 | He had only to be patient . |