Example sentences of "[be] only a " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | There have been only a few exceptions to this general rule . |
| 2 | It had been only a few hours , but that was enough to ensure that birthdays would always fall on public holidays and the correct number of hours could therefore be spent languishing . |
| 3 | A demand for dolphin meat for human consumption has been only a recent trend , but high transport costs from the remote Iki Island made the export of edible dolphin meat uneconomic . |
| 4 | Bradford was ‘ not troubled with them ’ [ fascists ] , ‘ The Movement does not receive much support ’ in Dewsbury , and there appear to have been only a couple of modest meetings in Huddersfield . |
| 5 | In the past , and sometimes even in the present , bad environmental management of rivers has been only a part and a symptom of bad man-management . |
| 6 | Moving further north , the United States has rather fewer volcanoes , and although there are some impressive cones such as those of Mt Shasta and Mt Rainier , both over 4,000 metres high , there have been only a few minor eruptions in historic times . |
| 7 | These lowland soils are called Brown Earths because there has been only a small amount of leaching which leaves the humus and chemicals fairly evenly spread between the A and B horizons of the soil . |
| 8 | It was in fact anticipated that the establishment of the Library Instruction Materials Bank ( LIMB ) in 1977 would remove some of the duplication in production , but there has been only a small measure of success here . |
| 9 | Ensign Piper had been only a short time in Australia when he volunteered for duty in the convict settlement on Norfolk Island . |
| 10 | But I watched her transform the house from being their place — and it had been only a place , child-soiled , functional — into her home . |
| 11 | Tamar sat and talked quietly , telling her Uncle about her life and about Victoria , who had been only a small child when he had last seen her . |
| 12 | In Britain , however , there has been only a modest and localised recent recovery by the extreme right . |
| 13 | Elena received a fee for permission to purchase what was by Romanian standards a luxurious limousine , even if in the West the car might have been only a family saloon . |
| 14 | The upheavals in Africa had been only a rehearsal . |
| 15 | As a secular leader , the king may have had charge of the army , although this may have been only a ceremonial role , since the tablets seem to tell us that there were generals . |
| 16 | But there had been only a small decrease in mental hospital beds and little sign of a significant shift to different forms of care . |
| 17 | Since 1985 there has been only a marginal reduction in mental hospital beds : ‘ I think we lost some somewhere ’ , as Dr Peter Verbraak , Director of de Grote Bek Hospital in Groningen , recently commented . |
| 18 | While the number and proportion of women in paid employment has increased significantly since the Second World War , there has been only a very small improvement in women 's wages compared with those of men , and little growth in the range of occupations in which women are able to gain employment . |
| 19 | In the EC there has been only a limited introduction of expanded audit mandates by individual member countries . |
| 20 | ‘ Up to now , Brown , you have been only a cypher . |
| 21 | But Ben was staring down at where his left hand had been only a moment before , sounding the chord . |
| 22 | She 'd given him no encouragement — their encounters had been on a light , friendly basis only — but she knew that he 'd long since stopped seeing Louise , and there 'd been only a couple of short-term girlfriends since . |
| 23 | There have been only a few empirical studies of the relationship between volume and maturity . |
| 24 | From there it had been only a matter of time until he was given his own prison . |
| 25 | At that time she had known few people in the district , for they were among the first of the incomers , and Camille had been only a baby with the consequent ailments , accidents and dissatisfactions . |
| 26 | Even now , after this short while , she found it hard to remember if Johnny had truly been with her or if it had been only a dream . |
| 27 | However , there has been only a one to three per cent reduction in fat on sheep and cattle carcases during that period . |
| 28 | Outside the wall , except on the north side , where the river came to its foot , there appears to have been only a single ditch , some 6.5 m ( 21 ft ) wide and 2.5 m ( 8 ft ) deep , which had been truncated by the medieval ditch ; it is most likely to have been contemporary with the early rampart . |
| 29 | What had been only a dense red glow when I first looked into the chamber was now a torrent of liquid flame . |
| 30 | It must have been only a 7.65 that got him . |