Example sentences of "could only [vb infin] [prep] a " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | There were large and small holes and we could only go through a hole once . |
| 2 | Warned that she could only stay for a few moments , Laura had sat down quietly in a chair beside the bed , taking her cousin 's inert , pale hand and praying , as she had never prayed before , that Liz would be able to survive her ordeal . |
| 3 | But , he favoured her with what she could only perceive as a reassuring smile when , ‘ I 'm on my way to Mariánské Láznë myself , ’ he commented easily , ‘ so that 's one problem you can forget . ’ |
| 4 | Enlightened anticlerical views could only spread among a fairly small educated élite and in Russia , in spite of some ultraconservatives , it was the ruling class which was alienated from the church rather than the mass of the people . |
| 5 | Rosemary Roche , 35 , of Gillingham , Kent , endured five years of pain and for a while could only walk with a stick , said Deputy High Court Judge Morrison . |
| 6 | It was successfully argued that the phrase " is or " could only relate to a customer when the soliciting is taking place . |
| 7 | It was so much the sort of remark one could only make to a girl friend , but Rupert took it very nicely and said with only slightly forced heartiness , ‘ Jolly good , and it 's an excuse for me to have a better meal than usual , too . |
| 8 | Still , the taboos have been the source of much mirth : the stand-up 's traditional reliance on smut and mothers-in-law could only exist in a largely sex-negative society . |
| 9 | Its concern with adolescent love , and the way in which its idealism and purity can not evade the sullying effects of adult realities , paralleled Minton 's own fear of lost youth , his obsession with adolescence and desire for a love that could only exist in a state untrammelled by adult responsibilities . |
| 10 | In Kober 's pianos the check could only function as a hammer rest and not as a true check because the hammer pointed towards the player . |
| 11 | ‘ I could only speak with a muffle . ’ |
| 12 | They were uniform but occurred in such abundance and could so readily be transported that even when they were taken over as currency they could only serve as a rule for small change . |
| 13 | Indifferently magnificent , it sneered back at my eager camera lens , which could only fit in a pitiful few floors . |
| 14 | Shakespeare evidently shared Donne 's dissatisfaction with the extant convention , agreed with him that unfulfilled love was a trope that could only lead to a limited number of stereotyped situations . |
| 15 | Here he was , a friar , a priest , a man sworn to chastity , feeling twinges of jealousy about someone he could only claim as a friend . |
| 16 | So the citizen could only flourish as a person by acting as a part or member of the whole , the community . |
| 17 | Hareven , in her discussion of early industrial society in America ( 1978 ) , suggests that this type of exchange was more common than sharing households , but that it could only operate on a reciprocal basis . |
| 18 | Despite the fact that Bill was in his mid-fifties and had a chronic heart condition , which meant he could only play for a maximum of five minutes a match , it was a good move on Fred 's part as the pub owned the cricket pitch at the rear and naturally , as captain , Bill felt obliged to hand it over to the club , and so ‘ The Tip ’ was born . |
| 19 | The lights upstairs were still on ; if she could only get to a window she might be able to see what the men outside were doing . |
| 20 | China could only wait for a more favourable opportunity to recover her rights . |
| 21 | Carol had written it specially for Nicholson ; he could read some of the special nuances that would mean something to him and no one else , nuances that could only come from a friendship and working relationship spanning fifteen years . |
| 22 | Such lèse-majesté could only come from a member of the public . |
| 23 | So , if we knew that P was the first letter of a word we would know that the second letter could only come from a small group , and that A , E , I , O , and U are the most likely candidates , H and S are less likely but possible , and F and N very unlikely , but not impossible . |
| 24 | A speechless ape presumably has some sort of feeling for the opposition " I " / " Other " , perhaps even for its expanded version " We " / " They " , but the still more grandiose " Natural " / " Supernatural " ( " Man " / " God " ) could only occur within a linguistic frame . |