Example sentences of "[vb past] be like " in BNC.

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1 Some of his male colleagues boasted about how they 'd felt with various women , raising an arm to show what they 'd been like .
2 I supposed I 'd been like that too , but I could n't remember .
3 He 'd been like that once , he 'd trusted and believed , and look what had happened to him .
4 I suppose in the old days , if we 'd been like you , she 'd have been living with us as a matter of course . ’
5 as I told you before I 'd been like it before and it
6 And there 'd been like a half door going to the shop like there you know .
7 The hum of the bowstring when it came was like the sound of a harp being tuned , and when Jehan glanced back again Alexei was getting down from his bay to recover his arrows .
8 What happened was like a farce in the theatre !
9 They were overheating in the Med , which they claimed was like swimming in spit .
10 We 've always had drams , but the way it developed was like a natural progression .
11 ‘ If all the blokes I knew were like you then I 'd be better off with another girl , would n't I ? ’ she said scornfully .
12 At least , all the other eighteen-year-olds I knew were like this , so I presumed it was normal .
13 ‘ Everything I did was like stepping stones to Hawaii . ’
14 Surinder , a Sikh woman , explained to me what it had been like coming to Britain in the sixties and finding a job in a sweat-shop soon after .
15 In the early days of the strike Jayaben Desai , perhaps Britain 's best known Asian trade unionist , described to me what it had been like when she came to work at Grunwick in the mail order department :
16 His grandmother had been like a mother to him for most of his childhood .
17 The last year had been like a dream , a fairy tale ; but suddenly , as the cameras retreated and the curtains drew on another quiet Balmoral evening , with the Queen insisting on formal dress for dinner , as she does every night , the dream began to dissolve .
18 He tried to remember what the weather had been like in the last week and realized he had no idea ; like many city-dwellers he had moved from flat to car to office without registering any variation .
19 Aunt Edith , Uncle Walter 's wife , had been like that before she died .
20 When Emily asked him what it had been like then , his eyes filled with tears .
21 At first it had been like being spied on , but now she forgot them most of the time , except when she wanted to do something she should n't .
22 To visit their former homes and lands had been like touching history .
23 Her voice acquired a jeering note , not unfamiliar to Roland , who wondered for the first time what his mother had been like before her disappointment , which in her case was his father and to some extent himself .
24 This was travelling in style — as one Imperial Airways passenger put it : ‘ I was sorry to get out ; it had been like sitting in a comfortable friendly club . ’
25 One can imagine a university student writing two letters — one to his parents and the other to his best friend — in which he said what the rag dance last Saturday had been like .
26 It was sad when it died ; sad because of the memory of what it had been like when there was still hope .
27 Maybe it had been like worship then , worship that begins in love and dovetails neatly into hate .
28 He composed his blends not only according to the flavour of the juice , but also according to what the weather had been like that year — an early or late development , depending on the amount of cold or rain there had been — and according to whether the vines had grown a rich or mediocre foliage .
29 It had been like kicking the hell out of a two-hole outhouse ; a lot of shit had gotten out and the stink rode free on the four winds .
30 Two hours spent inside those drab grey walls had been like a life sentence .
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