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in vain

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To no avail, useless, as in All our work was in vain. [c. 1300] Also see take someone's name in vain.

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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How to use in vain in a sentence

  • When Montezuma's tree fell the people gathered on the house-tops to watch the east-in vain, for the white man was there.

  • A man is not an elder because his head is gray; his age may be ripe, but he is called "Old-in-vain."

  • I come as a friend, and that I may save you a labour-in-vain trouble.

    Caleb Williams|William Godwin
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