Some were participants in the riots, others mere onlookers.

But on the second, he was rendered a mere onlooker by Holm's backhand down-the-line match winner.

As might be expected, Dr. M'Crie was no mere onlooker.

You will remain entirely out of it, off to one side, a mere onlooker.

There was a sense, therefore, in which Niall and Cheb the Mighty met as equals, while the others were mere onlookers.

My wife, a mere onlooker, was wounded.

One of the parties had evidently been repulsed, but the mere onlookers could not tell whether Mandiboy or Camerfield had gained the upper hand.

Atlan practically had to regard himself as a mere onlooker.

But the other institutions, the European Parliament and the Commission will not, for all that, be resigned to the role of mere onlookers.

Or aren't they irrelevancies, mere onlookers at an urban spectacle created by forces that lie beyond the control of even national governments?