vanitas
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of vanitas
1905–10; Latin: literally, vanity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Harnett had much simpler taste than his patrons, and while “Ease” is not a vanitas painting auguring death, he was known for incorporating traces of humor and irony in his paintings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
Yet pronk works carried deeper meanings as the earliest forms of vanitas, a genre that uses symbolism to convey the brevity of life and futility of pleasure.
From Salon ● Mar. 10, 2024
And she picked up on the morbid side of me — I have a collection of hourglasses and vanitas things with skulls.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2017
Decay is more deliberately the subject of a wonderfully creepy 17th-century Italian vanitas bust in white and yellow marble of a grotesque skull outfitted with wig and armor.
From New York Times ● Jan. 26, 2012
"Oh, vanitas vanitatum!" exclaimed Alphonse, with a laugh.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 372, October 1846 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
