Example sentences of "were [adv] but [adj] " in BNC.
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| 1 | The odds against him were all but unimaginable . |
| 2 | Weighing it all up , Ramsay came to the conclusion that the chances of capturing the usurper at this stage were all but non-existent , and that their wisest course was to return at once with his dire news to the main Scots array in Annandale or wherever it had reached by now . |
| 3 | There was one girl in particular who interested Harriet , a small girl with hair cut gamin short , whose face was so expressive that it seemed to reflect every one of the emotions that they were all feeling , these midinettes who had basted hemlines and stitched hooks and eyes into place , positioned trimmings and sewed them into place with such tiny stitches that they were all but invisible to the naked eye . |
| 4 | He caught a good couple of pounds of roach on ledgered casters from bites that were all but invisible . |
| 5 | The shutters were all but useless . |
| 6 | The car 's hydraulics soughed as they tried to compensate for the sudden shift of the bubble but against that gale they were all but useless , and the bubble-canopy clanged on the car 's shell . |
| 7 | It was not only that the players were away but that while they were away they were losing badly . |
| 8 | Cursory reading of the financial pages over the past few months would have left the average reader with the impression that while the US and UK economies were laboriously but undeniable clambering out of the recessionary trough , Japan was flat on its back and looking like getting worse before it got better , and that high interest rates in Germany were plunging that economy into a recessionary black hole and dragging most of the rest of the continent with it — now comes a report from International Data Corp saying its Global IT Survey of 5,000 computer executives , 500 chief executives and finance chiefs , and 1,100 local network managers in six biggest economies indicates that growth in computer spending will rise 2% to 3% in 1993 and , surprise , surprise — the US and the UK should outperform the rest of Europe and Japan . |
| 9 | They were hard but gentle men . |