Example sentences of "[was/were] both a [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | And when the babies were both a ripe four-plus , and she did indeed go off to Peking and left them with me , the ensuing fun made me wonder sometimes whether I was their father , which is no question to put , since the answer should be proffered , I suppose . |
| 2 | It recognized that forests were both a national resource in the sense of providing timber , food and fuel , for the country concerned , and a global resource , valuable both as a " bank " of genetic diversity ( particularly plant-derived medicines ) , and as a " carbon sink " , absorbing CO2 which would otherwise contribute to the greenhouse effect . |
| 3 | It recognized that forests were both a national resource in the sense of providing timber , food and fuel , for the country concerned , and a global resource , valuable both as a " bank " of genetic diversity ( particularly plant-derived medicines ) , and as a " carbon sink , " absorbing CO2 which would otherwise contribute to the greenhouse effect . |
| 4 | Police on parade , in the absence of marches by a peacetime army , was both a major civic celebration and also a symbol of untrammelled power . |
| 5 | The social interaction between the two groups was both a major benefit that emerged , and a major justification for the project . |
| 6 | Of course , this was both a political and a disciplinary measure . |
| 7 | Its basic unit , the one-family household , was both a patriarchal autocracy and a microcosm of the sort of society which the bourgeoisie as a class ( or its theoretical spokesmen ) denounced and destroyed : a hierarchy of personal dependence . |
| 8 | Making overtures towards another who mirrored our own disquieting and long-buried Chinese identity was both a fearful and exciting prospect , and neither of us quite got up the nerve to take the initiative . |
| 9 | At sessions time it attracted the gentry and London professionals for what was both a legal highlight and an important focal point of social intercourse . |
| 10 | Central to both Catholic doctrinal belief and the public life of the local community was the regular weekly mass , attendance at which was both a legal and religious obligation upon all the laity . |
| 11 | Her Careers and Openings for Women ( 1935 ) was both a practical handbook and a sociological survey of the female labour market . |
| 12 | The affair was both a personal and a professional humiliation and she looked as though she could cry . |
| 13 | Yet this radical worker , formed in the revolutionary school of before 1848 , was to make his mark on labour history as the cautious , moderate and above all efficient administrator of the greatest of the ‘ new model ’ skilled unions , the Amalgamated Society of Engineers ; and was both a practising Anglican churchman and ‘ in politics a sound and consistent liberal , not given to political quackery in any form ’ . |
| 14 | For a while they strolled in silence before Corbett began to ask the Prior about his vocation to the monastic life , enjoying the sardonic replies and surprised to find that the Prior was both a distant kinsman to Robert Bruce and a keen herbalist , interested in medicine , with a passion for concocting samples , potions and cures . |
| 15 | It was both a spiritual autobiography and a justification of his right to preach . |
| 16 | It had become as comforting and necessary as a religious ritual , the brief preliminary washing which was like a dedication , the final ablution which was both a necessary chore and an absolution , as if by wiping the smell of his job from his body he could cleanse it from his mind . |
| 17 | From Brynner 's point of view , Rock thinks , his son was both a living rebuke and a terrible financial failure , and his drinking did n't help either . |
| 18 | Like his predecessors , he was both a barbarian warlord and ( as Eddius admitted ) ‘ a most Christian king ’ . |
| 19 | She was both a clever woman and a fool at one and the same time . |
| 20 | Mosley wished to hold a march through areas in the East End of London where there was both a large Jewish community and elements who would be receptive to a fascist demonstration . |
| 21 | Destutt 's science of ideas was both a scientific study and an aid to policy making through identifying errors in understanding the ways of the world ( Lichtheim 1967 : 8 ) . |
| 22 | This hardly won instant acclaim , but it was both a wise decision which in 1985 was fully vindicated and the decision of a strong leader . |
| 23 | Papworth was both a prolific and multifarious designer . |
| 24 | By the end of March this had been " refined " further : from then onwards , Franco 's war of attrition was both a military inevitability and a punishment for the Republic 's resistance . |
| 25 | In an age when even the most liberal of Mughal Emperors used to demolish Hindu temples , this was both a brave and novel work ; but some considered Dara 's views not just unusual but actually heretical . |
| 26 | Some lectures were some way even from this loose definition of science : John Ruskin lectured on Verona and Italian art in 1870 , and Richard Westmacott , who was both a Royal Academician and FRS , on art five weeks later — but he talked particularly on the question of assembling and conserving the Greek sculpture in the British Museum . |
| 27 | In his racing days , Clay was both a crazy and a hard man . |
| 28 | Now , on any view , this was both an inadequate and a misleading indication to the driver of the nature of his right under section 8(2) and what the exercise of that right would involve and I agree entirely with the decision of the Divisional Court allowing the defendant 's appeal from his conviction of an offence under section 5 by justices based on the admission in evidence of the breath specimen . |
| 29 | Indeed , he was both an amateur painter and a musician in a rock band that met at weekends . |