excessive pride in one's appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, etc.; character or quality of being vain; conceit: Failure to be elected was a great blow to his vanity.
2.
an instance or display of this quality or feeling.
3.
something about which one is vain.
4.
lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness: the vanity of a selfish life.
5.
something worthless, trivial, or pointless.
6.
vanity case.
7.
dressing table.
–adjective
8.
produced as a showcase for one's own talents, esp. as a writer, actor, singer, or composer: a vanity production.
9.
of, pertaining to, or issued by a vanity press: a spate of vanity books.
Origin:
1200–50; ME vanite < OF < L vānitās, equiv. to vān- (see vain ) + -itās- -ity
a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.
2.
a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person: a slave to a drug.
3.
a drudge: a housekeeping slave.
4.
a slave ant.
5.
Photography. a subsidiary flash lamp actuated through its photoelectric cell when the principal flash lamp is discharged.
6.
Machinery. a mechanism under control of and repeating the actions of a similar mechanism. Compare master .
–verb (used without object)
7.
to work like a slave; drudge.
8.
to engage in the slave trade; procure, transport, or sell slaves.
–verb (used with object)
9.
to connect (a machine) to a master as its slave.
10.
Archaic. to enslave.
Origin:
1250–1300; ME sclave < ML sclāvus (masc.), sclāva (fem.) slave, special use of Sclāvus Slav, so called because Slavs were commonly enslaved in the early Middle Ages; see Slav
