vain
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Guy scanned the sea of bald caps in vain, then panicked.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
"Otherwise, everything I was fighting for will have been in vain."
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Filipino fans formed unmoving lines, hoping in vain to squeeze into the ludicrously limited capacity of Court 6 just to catch a glimpse of her main draw debut.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
Speaking of trillion-dollar leprechauns, you will hunt through all 545 pages in vain for those big “DOGE” savings you were promised.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 17, 2026
Before her stretched a vast treeless waste, where heather and dwarf willow hugged the ground in a vain attempt to avoid the wind; where small peat-brown lakes shivered amid tossing marsh grass.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
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
He was the vainer and more foolish thing, She the more poisonous.
From Collected Poems Volume Two by Noyes, Alfred
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
Unexpectedly, he discovers in Sondra Finchley, beautiful heiress, a sweetheart who will fulfill his dearest, vainest dreams.
From Time Magazine Archive
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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