"Belated as they may be", "expensive as they may be". Can someone please explain the structure of these sentence as to what exactly does "as they may be" mean and how it is used ?
Learn English – “as they may be”, “as it may be” meaning and use cases
expressionsphrases
Best Answer
The above is not a complete sentence. Normally, such phrases are the middle of a complete sentence or the end of a complete sentence. For example:
The adjective "belated" is used to describe the nature of the subject such as the noun "commiseration" in the example above. The phrase "as they may be" is used to indicate that the "commiseration" is heart-felt, even though it is late in delivery.
Another example:
The example above is slightly different since the phrase "belated though they were" appears in the middle of the sentence. The meaning of the above example is that the offers to help were happily accepted even though they were late or delayed.
Further similar examples (hopefully self-explanatory):