Example sentences of "were but " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | They were but 11 at the time of the Falklands War and turning 14 as Gorbachev entered the Kremlin . |
| 2 | External and internal war produced their victims , of whom Makarenko 's stray youths were but one example . |
| 3 | The huge slump in the grain price on the Volga and elsewhere in the winter of 1922 , and the lesser slide in the price of flax from Belorussia , were but two of the contributing factors , though grain played a basic role . |
| 4 | They and the neighbours were but mildly impressed and Maria clearly disbelieving . |
| 5 | The others were but background and audience . |
| 6 | If only they knew that to him their revelations were but bricks in the house he was trying to build , rungs on the ladder of discovery , twisted curve-edged pieces in the current puzzle ! |
| 7 | I learned then that we were but few , while the white men were many , and that we could not hold our own with them . |
| 8 | Finally he pointed out to his mother that there were but two keys to the room and the Shills had one each . |
| 9 | ‘ We 've known for 23 years what the potential problems were but done little to solve them , ’ says Hinners . |
| 10 | His solitary life had made him an accurate observer of wild creatures , and to him humans were but other creatures , rare , but the most dangerous and observable of all . |
| 11 | William Bayles Hauxwell fought mightily to keep pace with the ceaseless tide of farmwork at a time when mechanization and all the labour-saving devices now taken for granted in agriculture were but a distant dream in Baldersdale . |
| 12 | Seeing the shortness of the crossing , the frequency of fog in the Channel , the length of the October and November nights , and the species of calm that characterizes this narrow sea for more than six weeks of December and January , I deemed the obstacles by no means insuperable , especially for partial ‘ diversions ’ and in the winter of 1777–81 laid before the ministry the plans of an expedition against the Isle of Wight which were but the preliminary of a great project of descent . |
| 13 | The doctor and the engineer were but the latest to follow the folly and beggary route , the minority which every generation throws up thinking they can beat the system . |
| 14 | These ghastly memorials were frequently laid down during the lifetime of the persons they were intended to commemorate , in order that they might constantly be reminded that they were but mortal . |
| 15 | Of course he knew what those reasons were but he had never faced them . |
| 16 | Adam found himself not at all sure what rates were but he knew that people who owned houses did pay them . |
| 17 | Alan told me how old they were but I 'm a bit vague about kids , I 'm afraid . ’ |
| 18 | ‘ We had a bad time for the first 250 metres and they did n't know where we were but our cox Garry Herbert was brilliant . |
| 19 | There were but six people on board , all of whom were killed and although the event was duly reported in the press and other media as one might expect , the world proceeded with its normal business and within a few days the matter had receded into the background . |
| 20 | Now , an amendment to an ICAO agenda requires a two-thirds majority in plenary session , and we were but three European States who wished to put this through . |
| 21 | At one time the Rowdies were mainly Skinheads for whom the terraces were but one of a number of arenas for collective action . |
| 22 | Er and obviously we 'll , we 'll we 'll get the response erm a a as it were but erm that 's something I could n't , I could n't answer at this particular time . |
| 23 | She had once thought of herself as unique , had been encouraged ( in theory at least ) by her education and by her reading to believe in the individual self , the individual soul , but as she grew older she increasingly questioned these concepts : seeing people perhaps more as flickering impermanent points of light irradiating stretches , intersections , threads , of a vast web , a vast network , which was humanity itself : a web of which much remained dark , apparently but not necessarily unpeopled : peopled by the dark , the unlit , the dim spirits , as yet unknown , the past and the future , the dead , the unborn : and herself , and Brian , and Liz , and Charles , and Esther , and Teddy Lazenby , and Otto and Caroline Werner , and all the rest of them at that bright party , and in these discreet anonymous dark curtained avenues and crescents were but chance and fitful illuminations , chance meetings , chance and unchosen representatives of the thing itself . |
| 24 | He watched her lower her head until her luscious lips were but an inch from his impatient weapon . |
| 25 | My father , no , no he was too old then , no my brothers both were but er . |
| 26 | Oh , we 're sure they were but er this was the thing with a private collier company where you had er a sort of , not quite chairman , of the colliery sitting there at the top o in the office , watching everybody come and go . |
| 27 | But er as I say there were people really worse off than we were but we were n't all that well off and my mother as I say took in washing and did black leading and all that sort of thing for very small remuneration . |
| 28 | If the year of our folly 1990 had started inauspiciously for me , then the Fates , Lady Luck , Lord Chance , God , Life , Evolution — whoever or whatever — immediately thereafter set about the business of proving that the entangled disasters distinguishing the year 's first few days were but a mild and modest prelude to the more thorough-going catastrophes planned for the weeks and months ahead … and this with a rapidity and even an apparent relish which was impressive — if also bowel-looseningly terrifying — to behold . |
| 29 | Schemes of reformatories and maids ' protection societies were but ‘ paltry , peddling scratches on the surface of evil ’ . |
| 30 | However diverse the animals and plants of the modern world , they were but the last in a long sequence of populations that have replaced one another throughout the earth 's history . |