I expect it to earn its cost in less than three years.

我希望它在3年内赚回成本。

《新英汉大辞典》

You might expect young women scientists to make less than older men.

也许你会认为年轻的女科学家挣的自然比年长男科学家少。

youdao

All too often top level management expect results in less than 18 months and unfortunately results don't typically manifest themselves that fast.

顶级管理层时常期望在18月内就看到结果，不幸的是结果通常不会那么快就自动现身。

youdao

Stephen Hillenburg,says he did not expect the series to last longer than one season, much less ten years.

VOA: special.2009.08.21

So we can have our two hydrogen atoms come in here, and what we will find is - now that we have all of our orbitals filled up -- so thinking about what this angle is here, would you expect it to be less than or greater than what we saw for ammonia before?

我们在这里有两个氢原子，我们会发现,现在我们所有的轨道都填满了-,考虑一下这里的角度，你们觉得它比在氨中看到的,要大还是要小？

麻省理工公开课 - 化学原理课程节选

Tourism industry officials expect visitor arrivals to fall to about one million less than had been expected, because of the protests.

VOA: standard.2010.04.12

The agreement specified zero child support, which as you might expect is less than the guidelines.

FORBES: Are Divorce Attorneys Trying To Whipsaw IRS ?

They looked at me, the locals, in quiet disgust, as if I could expect no less than otters in the kitchen, the way I was after letting things go.

NEWYORKER: Fjord of Killary

Foursquare users might be all about hoarding ethereal social capital in the form of points and badges, but from brands they seem to expect nothing less than the cold, hard coupons.

FORBES: Deals, Not Badges Will Attract Mainstream Check-Ins