What does vain mean dictionary

Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous. See all examples of vain. These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors. Translations of vain in Chinese Traditional. See more. Need a translator? Translator tool. What is the pronunciation of vain?

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See word origin. Overly proud of oneself, especially concerning appearance; having a high opinion of one's own accomplishments with slight reason. Having or showing excessive pride in one's appearance or accomplishments; conceited. Effecting no purpose; pointless, futile. Not yielding the desired outcome; fruitless. The definition of vain is someone or something without value, without force or who is conceited.

Without force or effect; futile, fruitless, unprofitable, unavailing, etc. Having no real value or significance; worthless, empty, idle, hollow, etc. Having or showing an excessively high regard for one's self, looks, possessions, ability, etc.

Vain also was the valour and ability he showed in the campaign against the Royalists in La Vende. The hopes of a man that is void of understanding are vain and deceitful: and dreams lift up fools.

He went on, ruminating on the vain shadow, into which his over-heated ambition to act and to be distinguished, had involved him. He came back in due time, but bringing nothing for me, and I felt that my appeal had been in vain. After looking for them in vain down below he had feared that they might have found their way into the open air.

New Word List Word List. Save This Word! See synonyms for vain on Thesaurus. See antonyms for vain on Thesaurus. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms.