Examples of vain

• As he quite logically pointed out, no one would be vain of literacy in a society where everyone was literate.

• I too hoped and waited for one until now- but in vain.

• He could hardly have expounded his position more clearly: quite bluntly, any plans to abolish music are described as vain.

• The overarching problem that inspired the controversy is an essential discrepancy that one hopes, in vain, is merely literary or typographical.

• The reforming conductor's efforts were in vain; thus 'rue', an old-fashioned literary word for regret.

• Not in vain were the author and reciter of the epic called sarvadarshi, all-seeing.

• Their efforts were largely in vain, however, since the separate disciplines tended to continue on their way unaffected by the rhetoric of unity.

• I looked in vain for the terms theropod, cynodont and perissodactyl and yet some 10% of the definitions are apparently devoted to palaeontology.

• The choice has been problematic and those familiar with the historic issues of the journal may search in vain for their favourites.

• Schlageter's life had thus been pointless, his death in vain.

• The vain pathos of the tortoises' courtship was reinforced by their superficial appearance.

• In vain would they assemble for this purpose the wisest statisticians, the most expert merchants, the most skilled manufacturers, and the ablest administrators.

• In short, it was the moral type of the vain, the superficial and the narcissistic, and the only emotion it could inspire was 'contempt'.

• Their main arguments were moral-theological: experimentation and the use of microscopes were vain and wicked.

• Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.