Example sentences of "[verb] when [pron] could " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Perhaps he only meant them to meet when he could fit her in with his other engagements . |
| 2 | The second group , of those — even including some Party members — who had previously been apathetic or negatively disposed towards the Party , thought that the time had now come when they could air their feelings . |
| 3 | She found the conversation embarrassing and wondered if the time had come when she could no longer avoid asking him to come and see her new house . |
| 4 | ‘ We 'd been evicted when we could n't pay the rent because the potatoes failed . |
| 5 | Perhaps the old woman would die too before really warm weather came and the old man began to smell when they could save by burying both with one funeral . |
| 6 | He painted when he could — in his little spare time , in his holidays . |
| 7 | On their side the Turks taxed when they could areas which were formally outside their territory but which were accessible to the border-guards which they , like the Habsburgs , maintained all along this hazy frontier . |
| 8 | I now walk when I could drive and take exercise regularly . |
| 9 | They came when we could n't possibly have expected them . ’ |
| 10 | His deep , deep penetration of her came when they could hold back no longer , when the sensuality had swollen so painfully inside them that it cried out for release . |
| 11 | She sat by her only daughter and watched as she grew thinner and breathed less and less easily until the day came when she could not breathe any more . |
| 12 | Eventually the time came when she could n't delay going downstairs any longer , and when she reached the kitchen she discovered that the visitor had left , and that Silas was examining the contents of the fridge . |
| 13 | ‘ Just bringing my psalter will do for now , ’ Isabel murmured when she could speak again , revelling in the teasing intimacy of lovers that was still so new to her . |
| 14 | They were sheep who had decided that this was no time to waste energy panicking when it could be used for galloping away as fast as possible . |
| 15 | I got dressed quickly in the bitter cold of the room , and washed when I could . |
| 16 | But nobody else in Seoul cared about trade links when they could focus all their attention on the crumbling marriage of the warring Waleses . |
| 17 | ‘ He knew if he had said he was an alcoholic there would be an enormous amount of interest and he had to gauge when he could cope with that . ’ |
| 18 | Every bit of her shied away from the idea , but what had Terry Lewis to gain from lying when she could find out the truth ? |
| 19 | Mr Kinnock accused the Conservatives of squandering £100 billion of North Sea oil receipts on tax cuts when it could have been used to rebuild the country . |
| 20 | In the annual report of the Ministry of Health it had been said that it was the practice , in some wards , to require a casual who was locked in a cell by himself to break a given quantity of stone , often very hard , down to a specified standard of size which was reached when it could be passed through a ring : |
| 21 | A Stoke pottery manager 's parents retired to the south-west , but returned when they could no longer live independently , moving ‘ to each of our houses in turn . |
| 22 | Martha longed to show off her advancement in reading and writing , for which she had been noted in the valley , and was bewildered and humiliated when she could make no sense of the books she was given . |
| 23 | One foreign ministry clerk in the early years of the twentieth century " soon decided that it was not worth the trouble to go to the office to sleep when I could sleep more comfortably in my own bed or pass my time in more interesting or more amusing tasks " , while an Italian ambassador is said to have spent only fifteen days of a year in residence in a post which he disliked . |
| 24 | Like Tilda , he found it easier to sleep when he could hear the lighters , like iron coffins on Resurrection Day , clashing each other at their moorings all night , and behind that the whisper of shoal water . |
| 25 | She felt much less used and abused when she could distinguish whether his hugs were genuine offers of warmth and love towards her or whether they were his means of asking for something just for himself . |
| 26 | Because students felt that they could not approach staff , they often had problems about what to do when they could n't understand the work : |
| 27 | Lord Brougham held that a debtor should also still be imprisoned if he refused to pay what he owed when he could do so by executing a deed , or if he was culpably extravagant or reckless in contracting debts which he had no reasonable expectation of being able to pay . |
| 28 | He looked less threatening when she could see the sincerity in his eyes , and his hair , finally loosened from its severe style , waving naturally round his ears . |
| 29 | Then , ‘ after a great deal more chit-chat I let him kiss me a tender goodnight on the doorstep with the promise to phone when he could and , gathering up my ermines , swept into the great portal . |
| 30 | It is nice to visit foreign teams but it means losing so much time in midweek to travelling when we could be concentrating on preparation for League games . |