vain
Example Sentences
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It all looked to be in vain as they slumped to 82-8 in the 15th over of their chase of 162 to beat Yorkshire at Headingley in Wednesday's quarter-final.
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
Crews worked into the night, and all day Saturday, in vain.
From Barron's ● Jun. 28, 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
He did not risk his life in vain.
From "The Boy Who Dared" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
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
And everybody saw, after this mark of the duchess's favour, that my young lord's promotion was secure, and people crowded round the favourite's favourite, who became vainer and gayer, and more good-humoured than ever.
From Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by Saintsbury, George
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 purple sits well on him as he impersonates one of the vainest, cruelest, weakest monarchs the English ever had to tolerate.
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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