vanity

Word family

van·i·ty /ˈvænəti/ noun (plural vanities)

1 PROUD[uncountableU] too much pride in yourself, so that you are always thinking about yourself and your appearance 虚荣(心)；自负

Sabrina had none of the vanity so often associated with beautiful women.

萨布里娜没有一点漂亮女人经常会有的那种虚荣。

2. [countableC] (also vanity table) a dressing table 梳妆台

3. the vanity of something literaryUNIMPORTANT the lack of importance of something compared to other things that are much more important 某事物〔相比于其他事物〕的微不足道

Examples from the Corpus

the vanity of something• Instead, he had directed his talents to bolstering the vanity of the military and the higher-paid members of the Civil service.• She blinked artificial eyelashes over wide, brown eyes that were smarting from the vanity of contact lenses.• By using key lines as verbal motifs, Pimlott also turns the play into a sombre meditation on the vanity of power.• Herodotos here shakes his head over the vanity of human wishes.• For conservatives it represented the vanity of social engineering and the breakdown of the liberal state in the face of impossible demands.

Examples from the Corpus

vanity• Vanity by any other name is still vanity.• His life is driven by vanity. He has to drive around in the most expensive car and wear the best designer clothes.• Her vanity kept her from getting a hearing aid.• The fury aroused by his anti-Pitt eloquence was at once frightening and flattering to his vanity.• His erect pompadour stands as proof that his male vanity is unharmed despite his incarceration.• However, little things which affect our vanity often influence us more strongly than major things which could affect our health.• Her older sisters plaited and decorated her hair, encouraging an already overdeveloped vanity.• Jo's vanity wouldn't let her walk past a mirror without looking in it.• They say I had the vanity to go down to Croisset and make an embarrassing scene on his doorstep.

Origin vanity

(1200-1300) Old French vanité, from Latin vanitas, from vanus; → VAIN

van·i·ty noun

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus