Construction was a protracted affair, the line finally opening on 1 May 1872.

The loading of an arquebus is a protracted affair.

Still, the general reader may be permitted to wonder: Why is biography such a protracted affair?

He had written once proposing marriage, not a protracted affair, and thought he'd had his answer.

The sacking was actually a complex and protracted affair.

Angola's second major war was a long, protracted affair dominated by foreign intervention.

She wanted no entanglements or protracted affairs, only release.

But his prior assessment was right; it was not a protracted affair.

Even without fresh shock waves, the region's recovery will be a protracted and painful affair.

The end of the fighting appears to have been a protracted and miserable affair.