Example sentences of "he had [adv] been able " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | He had even been able to purloin half an hour of Basil 's time . |
| 2 | He had even been able to specify a little more precisely the area where he thought they were concealed . |
| 3 | He had finally been able to confirm what she had believed and prayed for these past six weeks . |
| 4 | The only lodgings James had been able to afford were so squalid he had scarcely been able to concentrate on his studies for the cold each winter , and the thought of a house and a wife to warm his bed had been added incentive to pursue marriage plans with Maud Rollerson . |
| 5 | In the three days since his interview with the Bishop he had scarcely been able to speak for the bitterness of his blighted hopes . |
| 6 | Harvey wondered whether he had ever been able to , even in the beginning . |
| 7 | The effect of such correction can , in some instances , be dramatic , as in the case of a child who , after receiving his first pair of spectacles , spent several evenings looking at the stars as it was the first time he had ever been able to see them . |
| 8 | He found it impossible to believe that he had ever been able to write a book or give a lecture , or advise a government . |
| 9 | I put my arm across his shoulders , and as he leaned against me for a moment and sobbed I wondered if he had ever been able to cry like this — like a little boy with somebody to comfort him . |
| 10 | From Pepita 's symptoms he had rapidly been able to diagnose what kind of spider had bitten her and administer the antidote to its poison . |
| 11 | They really had no choice in the matter for he had always been able to threaten any dissenters , or strays , with the loss of their union cards . |
| 12 | He had always been able to anticipate the actions of others , especially his rivals . |
| 13 | He had always been able to defuse a potentially explosive situation . |
| 14 | He had never been able to deal with the outside . |
| 15 | All his dealings had been with himself and that larger self of family which had been thrown together by marriage or accident : he had never been able to go out from his shell of self . |
| 16 | He had never been able to lose himself in a crowd , or dash off somewhere suddenly on a whim . |
| 17 | ‘ He had never been able to bring himself to talk about it before , ’ he said . |
| 18 | His nanny had scolded him over and over , but he had never been able to stop . |
| 19 | His war record and the fact that he had never been able to catch him redhanded whilst poaching appealed to his old world code of honour . |
| 20 | He had taken the name of Varna from the name of the port from which he had sailed but he had lived his life in terror of deportation , a fear that had haunted him long after it had ceased to be a real threat , so that he had never been able to enjoy his son 's success , seeing it only as something which drew unwelcome attention to the Varna family . |
| 21 | For him the girl in the picture ‘ was made to seem perfectly in context as he had never been able to see people before ’ . |
| 22 | Adam might have escaped the file memories for years , suppressed them and jerked violently away from them , but he had never been able to pretend he was unscathed by those events . |
| 23 | Fred was a kind , considerate man , uncomplicated and loving in his way , but she regretted that he had never been able really to arouse her fully and take her to the height of passion . |
| 24 | " Tricky Dick " Nixon was an astute party politician , but he had never been able to project an appealing public " image " . |
| 25 | He had never been able to hit the animal but he knew how to throw a punch , and the Punk was n't such a good mover as Cobber . |
| 26 | The people in his past had been real once but , although that was a very long time ago , he had never been able to forget them or what they had done to his life . |
| 27 | He had never been able to grasp it himself , never been able to assemble the jigsaw pieces of his identity into a clear recognisable picture . |
| 28 | It was the nature of dogs to eat cats and he had never been able to see the sense of trying to stop them . |
| 29 | Perpetually subdued by the rigours of behaviour , and almost unable to express himself outside the vernaculars of Hunting , Racing , Shooting , Fishing and Cricket , he had never been able to make his case against Nico : " Awful , awful " was the best he could do . |
| 30 | Moodie had succeeded over Ulster 's short circuits at Kirkistown and Bishopscourt but , despite four years of tryi West , he had never been able to crack what is arguably Ulster 's toughest race . |