Word Finder - vanity

definition

That which is vain, futile, or worthless; that which is of no value, use or profit.

definition

Excessive pride in or admiration of one's own abilities, appearance or achievements.

definition

A dressing table used to apply makeup, preen, and coif hair. The table is normally quite low and similar to a desk, with drawers and one or more mirrors on top. Either a chair or bench is used to sit upon.

definition

A washbasin installed into a permanently fixed storage unit, used as an item of bathroom furniture.

definition

Emptiness.

definition

Any idea, theory or statement that is without foundation.

example

It is a vanity to say that if two stones are dropped from a tower, the heavier will experience the greater acceleration.

She was sitting at the vanity table brushing her hair when he returned.

All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky.

Whether the name was given in mere vanity to the barrier which Alexander passed (as Arrian and others repeatedly allege), or was founded also on some verbal confusion, cannot be stated.

As a historian, I know it has been the vanity of every age to think it represents a high point in history.

The mainspring is vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter.

He is always charming, but he is rarely inspiring, except in a very few passages where the sense of vanity and nothingness possesses him with unusual strength.

With a touch of vanity he expressed the fear lest "the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired."

From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostovs' with Natasha's grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own horizon--from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented itself.

He was amiable and even estimable, the chief fault of his character being vanity and an incurable tendency towards theatrical effect, which makes his travels, memoirs and other personal records as well as his historical works radically untrustworthy.

Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality--these are the enchanted circle I cannot escape from.

This story is probably an attempt to conceal a great disaster and to soothe the vanity of the Romans by accounts of legendary exploits.

There he discredited himself by his vanity, and shocked even the populace of Madrid by appearing drunk at the theatre.

Inset vanity mirror with tiled edging & a wooden pelmet over with inset spotlights.

His vanity, his pride of opinion and his inborn contentiousness were serious handicaps to him in his political career.

With all his faults, and in spite of no slight amount of personal vanity, President Faure was a shrewd political observer and a good man of business.

In the Itthon (At Home), by Alois Degre (1877), the tale is made the medium for a satirical attack upon official corruption and Hungarian national vanity; and in the Almok dlmodoja (Dreamer of Dreams), by John Asboth (1878), other national defects are aimed at.

He displays his own vanity, frivolity and futile cleverness with much unconscious humour, but, it is only fair to allow, with some literary dexterity.

The predisposing circumstances which affected Montaigne were thus likely to incline him to scepticism, to ethical musings on the vanity of life and the like.

The scepticism of Joseph Glanvill, which is set forth in his two works The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661) and Scepsis scientifica (1665), has more interest for Englishmen.

He does not consider the possibility of deriving enjoyment from wealth by helping the poor or encouraging learning (this latter, indeed, he looks on as vanity), and in general he recognizes no obligation on the part of a man to his fellows.

This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail.

The only reason for an individual to buy a club is personal vanity.

A brass and glass vanity with a white, wicker stool stood across the room.

The vanity is constructed from solid birch and finished in cinder (black).

He had been accused of vanity and ostentation in his office, but his reputation for ability and integrity as a judge was high even with his enemies.

In the steps that led to these wars and in their conduct the egotistic ambition and the vanity of the king played an important part; though he never showed real military skill and took no share in any military operations except in certain sieges.

The instinctive certainty that there is a supreme good, lying beyond empirical experience, and yet not an intellectual good - this feeling, and the accompanying conviction of the utter vanity of all earthly things, were produced and sustained by Neoplatonism.

They are deeply separated by religious differences, and their mutual jealousies, their inordinate vanity, English Miles 0 5 io 20 30 40 50 Railways Capitals of Vilayets &c. C Longitude East 42 of Greenwich their versatility and their cosmopolitan character must always be an obstacle to the realization of the dreams of the nationalists.

Maybe it was vanity, but it was hard to believe his interest in her wasn't genuine.

Mario Testino's images taken for Vanity Fair magazine turned out to be the last official portrait photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Some offer easy access wardrobe shelving behind the vanity mirror door.

A 1998 Vanity Fair Cover clearly signed " Love Madonna " by pop superstar.

True, she falsely trifled with his love; but he, perhaps, was only trifling with her vanity.

It's not quite a vanity project, but it is the second movie by the Broken Lizard comedy troupe.

The second bathroom comprises marble-topped vanity unit, shower, WC and heated towel rail.

The Laurel vanity unit teamed with a quadrant shower enclosure and fabulous 4 jet shower panel.

I suppose you might say a lot of it was pure vanity.

Therefore, do not confuse the external values of fleeting human vanity with spiritual enlightenment.

If I feel that that's just my own vanity, and I don't take my own vanity that seriously.

First the engineer's coffee maker catches fire on the bathroom vanity.

It is a foul bauble of man's vanity.

Johnson saw with more envy than became so great a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely any compliment not acidulated with scorn.

He pictured the vanity of his diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre's happiness.

What can you expect to find from Vanity Fair?

He was also criticized for his vanity and perpetual references to his own achievements.

His vanity, however, as has been admirably remarked, is essentially that of " the peacock, not of the gander," and is redeemed by his willingness to raise a laugh at his own expense (Strachan-Davidson, p. 192).

This misdirected will is punished by finding that the objects after which it thirsts are in truth vanity and emptiness.

The disaster was avowedly due entirely to Varus's incapacity and vanity, and might no doubt have been repaired by leaders of the calibre of Tiberius and Germanicus.

It was a very small, very disingenuous, inevitably an anomalous, and in the vanity of proclamations and other concomitant incidents rather a ridiculous affair; and fortunately for the dignity of history - and for Fremont - it was quickly merged in a larger question, when Commodore John Drake Sloat (1780-1867) on the 7th of July raised the flag of the United States over Monterey, proclaiming California a part of the United States.

Denying any form of moral sense or conscience, he regards all the social virtues as evolved from the instinct for self-preservation, the give-and-take arrangements between the partners in a defensive and offensive alliance, and the feelings of pride and vanity artificially fed by politicians, as an antidote to dissension and chaos.