(superl.) Having no real substance, value, or importance; empty; void; worthless; unsatisfying.
(superl.) Destitute of forge or efficacy; effecting no purpose; fruitless; ineffectual; as, vain toil; a vain attempt.
(superl.) Proud of petty things, or of trifling attainments; having a high opinion of one's own accomplishments with slight reason; conceited; puffed up; inflated.
(superl.) Showy; ostentatious.
(n.) Vanity; emptiness; -- now used only in the phrase in vain.
Example Sentences:
(1) For example, if we purchase new examination equipment without any consideration or if we decide what type of equipment to introduce according to the common advice of the purchase committee of the hospital or the medical school, then we cannot design an ideal system of laboratory examinations and are forced to invest a large sum of money in vain.
(2) The George Bush campaign juggernaut hit the first serious pothole of its cash-fuelled drive to the presidency yesterday, as the Texas governor tried in vain to fend off questions about whether he had used cocaine as a young man.
(3) Full set list, show one (thanks to princevault.com ) Take Me With U (acoustic) Raspberry Beret (acoustic) U Got The Look (acoustic) Instrumental jam (acoustic) Train In Vain (acoustic) Q & A (1) incl.
(4) VaIN rarely is an isolated lesion and frequently is preceded by, or coexists with, other types of premalignant genital squamous neoplasia.
(5) He’s the kind of self-styled intellectual journalist in politics who caused so much trouble in 20th century politics, not a bad man, decent enough in his way, but not as smart as he thinks he is, vain with it.
(6) For long spells, West Ham searched in vain for inspiration as they tried to find a way past Newcastle United’s defence and end a run of three matches without a win.
(7) Further, in a vain attempt for a boost in the Hoosier State, Cruz unveiled former rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate if he receives the nomination and was able to cajole the state’s sitting governor, Mike Pence, into an endorsement.
(8) The next few days may well determine whether, this time, such loyalty will be in vain; but, while yearning for a clarion call and what was described as "vision" in this paper's leading article yesterday, I need to pose some pretty stark questions to Guardian readers.
(9) He aims to put his newspapers, including the Times and the Sun, behind a paywall, something described by the co-founder of Twitter, Biz Stone, as a vain attempt to "put the genie back in the bottle".
(10) In vain I argued that Robin Day seemed to wear the same jacket and shirt every week, and fled back to radio."
(11) Now I can feel that my son's blood wasn't totally lost in vain.
(12) In vain will Cameron plead that blame should lie with Brown and his Labour colleagues.
(13) At a media day held to mark the completion of the training and arranged before the tragedy, soldier after soldier came forward to insist that, though they were apprehensive, they were determined to do a good job, partly to make sure that their six colleagues had not died in vain.
(14) He somehow scrambled to deuce and delighted in forcing Dimitrov to chase in vain from one side of the court to the other to go 6-5 up.
(15) Assessment of patients between 9 and 99 (mean 55) months after partial colpectomy for VAIN showed no recurrence of disease in ten patients (83%).
(16) The scientific establishment struggled in vain to produce evidence that would reassure the public.
(17) No grieving wants to go through that, and our city doesn’t want to go through that.” Murphy said an accelerated program to equip Baltimore police officers with body cameras would mean Gray “did not die in vain”.
(18) His mother has said she tried in vain to get help for him.
(19) But he flailed in vain as the police officers grabbed him, one forcing his T-shirt roughly up over his head as three or four others laid in with their wooden batons, dragging and pushing him to a line of waiting Land Cruisers and more helmeted cops.
(20) As Steve spends half his money trying in vain to keep a scowl off Michelle's face and the rest comfort eating, Liz stumped up half the cash.
Vanity
Definition:
(n.) The quality or state of being vain; want of substance to satisfy desire; emptiness; unsubstantialness; unrealness; falsity.
(n.) An inflation of mind upon slight grounds; empty pride inspired by an overweening conceit of one's personal attainments or decorations; an excessive desire for notice or approval; pride; ostentation; conceit.
(n.) That which is vain; anything empty, visionary, unreal, or unsubstantial; fruitless desire or effort; trifling labor productive of no good; empty pleasure; vain pursuit; idle show; unsubstantial enjoyment.
(n.) One of the established characters in the old moralities and puppet shows. See Morality, n., 5.
Example Sentences:
(1) With most big stars, the vanity and the power and the money take over.
(2) She believes her explorations – of their vanities, their blindnesses, their cruelties, of the brief moments in which they attain goodness, or glimpse a kind of realistic, unselfish love – to be of urgent importance.
(3) Aesthetic surgery crosses the dividing line between surgery for reconstruction and alteration of deviations (which do not in themselves constitute objective deformities) and is sometimes even performed without medical indication, but just for the gratification of individual vanity.
(4) So how did Vanity Fair decide to illustrate this heartfelt and rather astonishing interview?
(5) Using various self-report indices of these constructs we found that (a) defensive self-enhancement is composed of two orthogonal components: grandiosity and social desirability; (b) grandiosity and social desirability independently predict self-esteem and may represent distinct confounds in the measurement of self-esteem, (c) narcissism is positively related to grandiose self-enhancement (as opposed to social desirability), (d) narcissism is positively associated with both defensive and nondefensive self-esteem, and (e) authority, self-sufficiency, and vanity are the narcissistic elements most indicative of nondefensive self-esteem.
(6) "I've got a few men I respect very much and one would be Frank Gehry ," Pitt told Vanity Fair.
(7) Vanity Fair's contributing editor, Sarah Ellison, said Abramson was eminently prepared for the top job.
(8) A correlational analysis of the 7-factor components of the NPI (Authority, Exhibitionism, Superiority, Vanity, Exploitativeness, Entitlement, and Self-Sufficiency) and the MMPI validity, clinical, commonly scored, and content scales suggests that the seven NPI components reflect different levels of psychological maladjustment.
(9) By the time the guests have their fill of caviar-stuffed potatoes and get in their limos to the Vanity Fair party across town, most are sufficiently well lubricated to deal with one another: I walk in to see Benedict Cumberbatch standing by the bar with Joan Collins, while Patrick Stewart and Jared Leto are expressing mutual admiration for one another nearby.
(10) Janine di Giovanni is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and the author of Ghosts by Daylight (Bloomsbury).
(11) But also, how cool that you are all talking about that.’” The film has opened to mainly negative reviews, with the Guardian’s Henry Barnes feeling that the compromises Emmerich has made “ leave Stonewall feeling neutered ” while Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson called it “ alarmingly clunky ”.
(12) Vanity Fair and the New Yorker have said they will not host parties either.
(13) Condé Nast's Vanity Fair was the worst performer among the big name titles in the sector in print, reporting sales of 81,344, down 8% period-on-period and 16.8% year-on-year.
(14) In a rare interview with Vanity Fair, the Oscar-winning director of Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist said the arrest hit him harder than any incident since the murder of his wife Sharon Tate by the Manson family in 1969, as well as the subsequent media circus that followed.
(15) It’s about vanity and a desire to splash the cash.
(16) You got to love the Tories they're happy to spend taxpayers money (the've increased debt by £555 billion since George Osborne took office in 2010, ) on big vanity projects.
(17) I also believe that it is cruel to take a baby away from its mother.” In a 2005 Vanity Fair interview on the subject, Dolce said he would love an “entire football team” of children, but: “I have the small handicap of being gay so having a child is not possible for me.” They refer constantly to their business as their baby.
(18) When the case came to court, Mr Justice Eady refused to allow Vanity Fair to give the jury the full details of the 1977 attack.
(19) Prince undertook a six-month tour to promote 1999, where he was joined on the bill by his proteges the Time and a new all-female group, Vanity 6, the latter seemingly an embodiment of Prince’s sexual fantasies.
(20) Sometimes, it seems, calling oneself a feminist is a personal act of vanity, with no wider resonance – witness Louise Mensch the feminist , Theresa May the feminist and, most fantastically, Margaret Thatcher the feminist, even though her supporters will happily tell you that the woman stood for no one but herself.