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

Question

Answer

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!

Answer

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.

Answer

The speaker is aaying that the man was surely older than Mr. Dursley, instead of being younger like Mr. Dursley had thought he was.

Не упустите возможность выучить язык, не выходя из дома. Ознакомьтесь с подборкой опытных преподавателей и запишитесь на свой первый урок прямо сейчас!