Sentence examples for could have merely from inspiring English sources

They could have merely said nothing.

The rapid growth in list prices, especially for the best seats, could have merely displaced scalpers.

In the Millennium Falcon cockpit she could have merely been asking questions; as Fisher delivers them, they are full-blown accusations.

Armstrong could have merely left the pair to fend for themselves but he made his team slow down while Heras and Van de Velde remounted and caught up.

Ms. Warner brings her characteristic intelligence to a jagged and difficult text, to turn what could have merely showcased anew a longtime friend and colleague into a collective study in psychic depletion.

I suppose I could have merely chosen to disable it on a per site basis, but I feel more adult this way.

With track titles like "Erotic Heat," no one was surprised how shockingly unnerving the LP was, in a way recalling the sonic aggression of somebody like Lotic, more than it could have just been limited merely to the parameters of Chicago footwork.

Could her performance have merely hinted at an exaggerated sense of self-worth that led her to steal another artist's moment to shine?

It's the kind of bravura moment that could have been merely ornamental but that soon turns out to be only the first in a teeming series of similar images, some on an even grander scale (as during the casing of a big St . Louisbank) but most on a much more intimate one images that literally connect characters and spaces in distinctively agile and fluid ways.

Anthony Lane noted the movie's "restraint" in its depiction of its harrowing and melodramatic subject, added that it "could have been merely gruelling, but Mitchell keeps nudging scenes away from the obvious, toward the risky brink of comedy," and praised it as "a study of human quiddity and stubbornness under siege".

This could have been merely cute and self-regarding, but in its easy vivacity, Submarine comes across as the most playful, least neurotic of film-buff films.