vain
Example Sentences
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DeConinck said city leadership flew to Sacramento and tried, in vain, to get any traction.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026
Instead of the happy family reunion they'd always imagined, Godwin's first trip to the US was spent searching New York in vain for the father he'd waited years to reconnect with.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
Her shower not only was disrupted, but it was in vain because Basu started to sweat immediately.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026
The doctor of the diaries comes across as all too human—stubborn, biased, vain and vindictive.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Though she was far from vain, the thought of returning to her former lackluster hair was not very appealing, especially after receiving that nice compliment from Simon Harley-Dickinson.
From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood
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
A fairly brave and skilled soldier, a vainer man than General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna never wore sword, and one of his foibles was to see himself surrounded by a glittering escort.
From The Free Lances A Romance of the Mexican Valley by Mayne Reid
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
But now we know which is the vainest.
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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