Example sentences of "[vb past] [been] [vb pp] for [adj] year " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | ‘ When they 'd been separated for ten years , ’ said Mr Brownlow , ‘ your father met another family . |
| 2 | She 'd been divorced for 12 years . |
| 3 | She had been paralysed for thirty years . |
| 4 | The report lists ‘ many faults ’ inherent in the way the railway had been run for several years . |
| 5 | She and Caan had been separated for three years . |
| 6 | The woman did not return to complete the divorce , although she had been separated for three years . |
| 7 | By now he was of an age to make his own decisions , the first of which was to marry the English girl to whom he had been engaged for two years . |
| 8 | The most recent outstanding event in Jim 's distinguished career was the publication of his definitive catalogue of the collections of Christ Church , Oxford , on which he had been engaged for several years , coinciding with the opening of the new galleries to contain them . |
| 9 | Shortly after liberation in 1945 , he married Peggy Whitall , to whom he had been engaged for seven years . |
| 10 | Also in the field of biogeography world maps of plant formations had been utilized for many years and had indeed been adopted as the basis for some climatic classification by attempting to fit the classification to the plant distribution . |
| 11 | Relations with China , which had been strained for many years since the 1962 war between the two countries , gradually improved after Rajiv Gandhi 's visit to Beijing on Dec. 19-23 , 1988 , the first to China by an Indian Prime Minister for 34 years . |
| 12 | Relations between this group and the government had been strained for some years because of the sect 's links with Libya and its occupation of a disputed eight-acre site west of the capital , where it had built a commune . |
| 13 | One EC official said yesterday that the problem of fraud involving the Vatican had been understood for several years , and that attempts were being made to stamp it out . |
| 14 | This placed an unfortunate obstacle in the path of the police who might otherwise , simply on the grounds of suspicion , make a ‘ clean sweep ’ of all known criminals — a policy that had been advocated for some years by Matthew Davenport Hill , the Recorder of Birmingham — as a sure means to guarantee the safety of the streets . |
| 15 | On Sept. 17 it was announced that the defence and economic co-operation accord between the USA and Turkey had been extended for another year . |
| 16 | Last year the ministry claimed it had made progress , only to find it had to revise its figures to reveal no progress had been made for five years . |
| 17 | had been employed for 28 years on barley intake . |
| 18 | Also among those released was Aleke Banda , a former secretary-general of the ruling Malawi Congress Party ( MCP ) who had been detained for 12 years without charge ; he was at one time considered to be the heir-apparent of the ageing President Hastings Banda . |
| 19 | In fact , even the most basic repairs had been neglected for many years before that , so that structural problems developed where they might have been avoided . |
| 20 | She had brought glasses and dishes from home , she said ; they had been boxed for many years too long . |
| 21 | She was a quietly-spoken old lady who had been retired for seven years . |
| 22 | The treaty had been renewed for 20 years in 1974 but the Yemeni government had indicated that it would oppose renewal in 1994 . |
| 23 | Giorgos Balafas , who had been sought for seven years in connection with crimes committed by November 17 and another urban guerrilla group , Anti-State Struggle , had been arrested on Nov. 1 . |
| 24 | The decrease in spot density with age observed in patients with constipation is not therefore an age related factor , but is most probably related to the duration of the symptoms as most had been constipated for many years . |
| 25 | Although the general distribution of earthquakes around the world had been known for many years , it was only with the establishment of a comprehensive network of seismographic stations to monitor underground nuclear weapons testing in the early 1960s that a detailed global picture emerged ( Fig. 2.10 ) . |
| 26 | The existence of the tape , had been known for two-and-a-half years , as copies were sent anonymously to newspapers . |
| 27 | The problems of the system under which the starter operates a lever had been known for some years , but the Jockey Club and the course executive failed to replace it , the report added . |
| 28 | The long-awaited supercomputer had been promised for last year , but the target date was later pushed back to October 1993 . |
| 29 | It was rumoured that the ‘ train' actually came into Hallington Station and blew off steam ( even though the track had been lifted for some years ) . |
| 30 | The king provoked hostility by seeking to use his prerogative rights to raise money , and by requiring the payment of debts , many of which had been respited for many years . |