American Dictionary of the English Language

Dictionary Search

Vanity


VAN'ITY, noun [Latin vanitas, from vanus, vain.]

1. Emptiness; want of substance to satisfy desire; uncertainty; inanity.

Vanity of vanities, said the preacher; all is vanity Ecclesiastes 1:2.

2. Fruitless desire or endeavor.

Vanity possesseth many who are desirous to know the certainty of things to come.

3. Trifling labor that produces no good.

4. Emptiness; untruth

Here I may well show the vanity of what is reported in the story of Walsingham.

5. Empty pleasure; vain pursuit; idle show; unsubstantial enjoyment.

Sin with vanity had fill'd the works of men.

Think not when woman's transient breath is fled, that all her vanities at once are dead; succeeding vanities she still regards.

6. Ostentation; arrogance.

7. Inflation of mind upon slight grounds; empty pride, inspired by an overweening conceit of one's personal attainments or decorations. Fops cannot be cured of their vanity

Vanity is the food of fools.

No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity