vainglorious

From Middle English veinglorious, from Old French vain glorios, from Latin vānus (“empty”) + glōriōsus.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˌveɪnˈɡlɔː.ɹi.əs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːɹiəs

vainglorious (comparative more vainglorious, superlative most vainglorious)

1. Possessing excessive vanity or unwarranted pride.
   • 1694 May 9 (date delivered; Gregorian calendar); first published 1698, Robert South, “Christianity Mysterious, and the Wisdom of God in Making it so, Proved in a Sermon Preached at Westminster-Abbey, April 29. 1694.”, in Twelve Sermons upon Several Subjects and Occasions, volume III, London: […] Tho[mas] Warren for Thomas Bennet […], →OCLC, page 263:

     And the Apoſtle [Paul] ſeems here moſt peculiarly to have directed this Encomium of the Gospel, as a Defiance to the Philoſophers of his Time, the Fluſtring Vain-glorious Greeks, vvho pretended ſo much to magnify, and even Adore the VViſdom they profeſſed, […]

     An adjective use.

   • 1886, Robert Louis Stevensony, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde:

     I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering.

   • 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 85:

     "So kindly keep the vainglorious enumeration of your pots for the benefit of those village idiots who compose your particular set of boozing companions."

   • 1943 March and April, “Notes and News: Southern Locomotive Destroys Raider”, in Railway Magazine, page 119:

     Railway engines have been attacked with gunfire by raiding aircraft on both sides of the Channel and the impression has grown up that they are defenceless monsters to be pestered with impunity. The first engine to disprove this vainglorious theory was, we are glad to note, a British one. [The locomotive boiler exploded, causing the aircraft to crash.]

• vainglory

• “vainglorious”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.