In the following sentence, what does 'had to' mean?
In the following sentence, what does 'had to' mean?
Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak!--from Harry Potter 1
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Answers · 3
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Cary, think of the word 'had' as 'surely' in this sentence. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man 'surely looked older than him', and wearing an emerald-green cloak!
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had to be = necessarily so, for some reason, without doubt
Your sentence is a good example.
Thought there may be other answers, Joe's answer had to be the best as it was clear & first.
= "was', usually with some reason, often implied as in your sentence.
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The speaker is aaying that the man was surely older than Mr. Dursley, instead of being younger like Mr. Dursley had thought he was.
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