My feckless brother-in-law spent the past few years engaged in little, and thus has few financial resources.

Crozier retired from public life after the war, and spent his remaining years engaged in scholarly pursuits.

He spent several years engaged in agricultural pursuits.

She remained there for four and a half years, mostly engaged on the suppression of the slave trade.

He was for a time a university professor in America, and spent many years engaged in meditation at various monasteries.

Over the course of his lifetime, al-Ansārī spent eighty years engaged as a teacher and muftī.

She was for years engaged to an Italian count.

But then, since his regime spent its first five years engaged in a civil war, that is not surprising.

Mandela retired from active politics, and became, for several years afterward, engaged in a number of philanthropic activities.

I know it well, having spent several months over the past few years engaged in photographic work there.