Example sentences of "had been [verb] for years " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | The sense of being part of a general flux had been lost for years . |
| 2 | Long 's health had been deteriorating for years , but he had kept open his channels of communication ; like Law his influence was based on years of devotion to the interests of the party , and like Law 's that influence had been used to argue the case for coalition . |
| 3 | He was gathering data for a book about world metro systems , a task on which he had been engaged for years . |
| 4 | Sylvia had been trying for years to overcome her claustrophobia , but with little or no success . |
| 5 | My head was n't really in the right state for assimilating all this stuff , but as far as I could gather , Uncle Rory had been trying for years to come up with something Creative ( his capital , his italics ) . |
| 6 | MIT members were shown , in detail , the market which they had been trying for years to service . |
| 7 | It had long been a controversial issue and its approval had been delayed for years because of worries about the environmental consequences and the cost of the project . |
| 8 | Others have progressed rapidly in the beginning , only to experience considerable difficulty in overcoming the final hurdle — almost as though the mind was loath to give up a fear to which it had been clinging for years . |
| 9 | Thus flighted , I sent them shooting out over the mud and the water towards their suffocating ends ; then I buried them , using as coffins the big matchboxes we always kept by the stove , and which I had been saving for years and using as toy-soldier containers , model houses and so on . |
| 10 | It may never have been genuinely effective , or it may have failed because the organism lost its antibiotic properties when it had been grown for years in artificial cultures , or because its commercial manufacture was inadequately supervised . |
| 11 | Don had been experimenting for years before he took out the patent in 1970 and significantly stated that ‘ The difference in camber and relative incidence on the central fore and aft sections serves to stabilise the kite in pitch ’ . |
| 12 | It was worn and comfortable-looking , like an old , well-loved piece of furniture that had been kept for years . |
| 13 | The broken stag had been known for years . |
| 14 | In Australia , he had rejuvenated a sport that had been declining for years ; in England , he did exactly the same , leaving people exhilarated by his team 's play wherever they went and creating a great new surge of interest in the game . |
| 15 | For a start there were the Trumper 's advertisements on TV — a whole series of them , which had been running for years . |
| 16 | People had been waiting for years for freedom ‘ and they 've now had enough ’ . |
| 17 | It never occurred to me that anyone who had been starving for years would feel an incredible , overwhelming urge to eat that was both physical and emotional . |
| 18 | Having accepted the ground rules , all the Grants appreciated and relished a structure that allowed a degree of communication they had been missing for years . |
| 19 | They were staccato with a violence and bitterness which Sabine , stunned , guessed had been suppressed for years . |
| 20 | When Luxembourg finally admitted what many had been saying for years , that it wants a federal EC , British federalists tried to pretend that the Luxembourgers do not mean federal when they say ‘ federal ’ . |
| 21 | At last the government recognised what many researchers had been saying for years : that corporal punishment did not address the causes of bad behaviour , caused resentment among older pupils in particular , and was ‘ inimical to the quality of relationships between teachers and pupils upon which good behaviour is based ’ . |
| 22 | Even more part of it than Rosie , who had been coming for years . |
| 23 | It was doubtful if the equipment had been used for years . |
| 24 | The Führer 's claim that his work had been sabotaged for years , and that the German war machine could run at full stretch now that the last plot had been foiled , was seen to demonstrate that the people had long been lied to in earlier statements that time was on Germany 's side and war production increasing . |
| 25 | The top floor directly overhead had been abandoned for years . |
| 26 | Surely this was something that had been threatening for years ? |
| 27 | Repeated doses of bad news from the front generated mounting criticism of government incompetence ; ministerial confidence was visibly shaken ; and discontent which had been smouldering for years burst into flame . |
| 28 | It had been disintegrating for years , mainly because Durance had tired of that sort of pressure . |