vain
Example Sentences
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But England's bowlers held their nerve on this occasion, closing out a 55-run win as the brilliant Pavan Rathnayake's 118 off just 77 balls was in vain for Sri Lanka.
From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026
Wall Street is famous for taking Santa Claus’s good name in vain.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026
I’ve searched in vain for Norm Macdonald-like labels, “And now, the effective-altruism-spun news.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2026
Ultimately he blew $825,000 and two decades of work on the venture in vain.
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
“No, nor felt such thorns,” returned Laurie, with his thumb in his mouth, after a vain attempt to capture a solitary scarlet flower that grew just beyond his reach.
From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
But are vainer men than me really cultivating their monobrows?
From The Guardian ● May 3, 2017
You might even be vainer for some people might by the label in the belief that is better quality and thus a better value.
From New York Times ● Feb. 12, 2016
For clients who are vainer about their hearing than their eyesight, Otarion, Inc., Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., has designed a hearing aid housed in standard, horn-rimmed glasses.
From Time Magazine Archive
Ulape had two boxes of earrings, for she was vainer than I, and when she put them into her baskets, she drew a thin mark with blue clay across her nose and cheekbones.
From "Island of the Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell
They forget Indulge not in vain regrets for the past, in vainer resolves for the future—act, act in the present.—
From The Girl Wanted by Nixon Waterman
Self-defense, the historian wrote, naturally required “the perpetual repetition” of what he called “the vainest and most disgusting of the pronouns”: the first-person singular.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
This vainest of Falstaffs is a genuine slob whom Boritt houses in a shabby bachelor pad wallpapered in purple zebra stripes.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 15, 2021
For years D.C. had the vainest of owners, but he was balanced by Bobby Beathard and Joe Gibbs, two deft managers of ego — both theirs and others.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 13, 2013
In 1622 history's richest and most lavish painter was retained by the vainest and most powerful woman in France to create an appropriate tribute to herself.
From Time Magazine Archive
The vainest, most slap-happy and irreverent of men, in the presence of redwoods, goes under a spell of wonder and respect.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
Vocabulary lists containing vain
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act I
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Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" (1863)
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