Vanity

How to spell vanity

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce vanity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does vanity mean?

1. nounExcessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance, abilities, or achievements.
2. nounA dressing table or bathroom unit with a mirror and a built-in washbasin or storage.

Vanity in a sentence

• His vanity would not let him be photographed from his left side.

• The plumber fitted a new basin into the bathroom vanity.

• Out of sheer vanity she refused to wear her reading glasses in public.

• She kept her brushes and perfume neatly arranged on the bedroom vanity.

Where does vanity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin vanitas, which meant 'emptiness' or 'falseness', built on the adjective vanus, literally 'empty' or 'hollow'. In Roman use vanitas could describe anything insubstantial: idle talk, futile effort, or an unfounded boast. English took the word in during the 1200s by way of Old French vanite, at first carrying the moral sense of worthlessness and futility, as in the old phrase 'all is vanity'. From there it narrowed to mean excessive pride in one's own looks or achievements, since such pride was seen as hollow and groundless. The same vanus root sits inside 'vain' and 'evanesce' (to fade away), and remembering that core idea of 'empty' helps fix the single n and the -ity ending in the spelling.

How the word is built

• van- (from Latin vanus: empty, hollow)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)