The word “had” is the past tense of have, used as a main verb or auxiliary verb. Writers use it to show possession, experience, and completed actions. The examples below are drawn from authentic works to show how “had” appears in real writing.
Real Sentences for Had
They were the tracks of unshod ponies, three of them, and the ponies had been galloping.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
16 words, 88 characters
This I took for a sign that he had himself something to produce and that we should only have to wait.
Source: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
21 words, 101 characters
I had always been his favorite among the younger generation of Carters and so I hastened to comply with his demand.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
21 words, 115 characters
Or were they simply fools or cowards, submitting blindly, because they had not the wit nor the will to do otherwise?
Source: King Coal by Upton Sinclair
21 words, 116 characters
He had no love for authority, and certainly not the slightest intention of submitting to the domination of an ordinary Swede sailor.
Source: The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
22 words, 132 characters
The watchman related the few details connected with the finding of the body, which he said had been still warm when he came upon it.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
25 words, 133 characters
Left alone in the study, I opened the safe and withdrew the contents of the drawer in which he had told me I would find my instructions.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
27 words, 136 characters
I found the watchman who had discovered him, together with the local police chief and several townspeople, assembled in his little study.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
22 words, 138 characters
Powell, who was a mining engineer by education, stated that we had uncovered over a million dollars worth of ore in a trifle over three months.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
26 words, 143 characters
I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in his pockets.
Source: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
29 words, 148 characters
Possibly I had conjured up impossible dangers, like some nervous old housewife, and when I should catch up with Powell would get a good laugh for my pains.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
28 words, 155 characters
When he returned it was without warning, and I was much surprised to note that he had not aged apparently a moment, nor had he changed in any other outward way.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
31 words, 160 characters
Several months after I had returned home from my last visit, the first of March, 1886, I think, I received a telegram from him asking me to come to him at once.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
32 words, 160 characters
The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.
Source: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
62 words, 338 characters
Upon my return to the United States a few months ago, after the extraordinary series of adventure in the South Seas and elsewhere, of which an account is given in the following pages, accident threw me into the society of several gentlemen in Richmond, VA, who felt deep interest in all matters relating to the regions I had visited, and who were constantly urging it upon me, as a duty, to give my narrative to the public.
Source: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
77 words, 423 characters
More examples coming soon.
