vain
Other forms: vainest; vainer
If you spend all day admiring yourself in reflective surfaces — mirrors, pools of water, the backs of spoons — people may think you are conceited, or vain.
Vain is from Latin vanus, "empty," and in English it originally meant "lacking value or effect, futile," like your vain attempt to find a pencil in your messy, overstuffed backpack. Likewise, the phrase "in vain" means "without success." Vain also means "conceited, too proud of oneself." Carly Simon's line "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you" is an excellent illustration of this use.
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characteristic of false pride; having an exaggerated sense of self-importance“vain about her clothes”synonyms: conceited, egotistic, egotistical, self-conceited, swollen, swollen-headedproudfeeling self-respect or pleasure in something by which you measure your self-worth; or being a reason for pride
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unproductive of success“a vain attempt”synonyms: bootless, fruitless, futile, sleevelessunproductivenot producing or capable of producing
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vain / vein / vane
Vocabulary lists containing vain
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Here are links to our lists for the play: Act I, Act II, Act III, Act IV, Act V Here are links to other plays by William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, Hamlet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream
At just 272 words long, Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" is widely considered to be one of the most powerful battlefield orations of all time. On November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered the speech on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, considered to be a turning point in the Civil War.