vain

She moved to Menton, near the Italian border, in the vain hope that the warm climate would cure her tuberculosis.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

Jos Buttler's bravery came in vain as Sri Lanka fought back to beat England in the second one-day international at Headingley and set up a series decider at The Oval.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026

DeConinck said city leadership flew to Sacramento and tried, in vain, to get any traction.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026

Although he was revered by his men, former Yugoslav army spokesman Ljubodrag Stojadinovic once described him as "narcissistic, conceited, vain and arrogant".

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

And it was nothing at all next to those whose wait would be in vain.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

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 vainer than ever--probably he had offered his hand to some fifty of the fair sex of Bayreuth, as though he had been the giant Briareus, with fifty wedding-rings on his hundred hands.

From Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces; or, the Wedded Life, Death, and Marriage of Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkaes, Parish Advocate in the Burgh of Kuhschnappel. by Jean Paul

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