Vanity Fair
noun
(in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress) a fair that goes on perpetually in the town of Vanity and symbolizes worldly ostentation and frivolity.
(often lowercase) any place or group, as the world or fashionable society, characterized by or displaying a preoccupation with idle pleasures or ostentation.
(italics) a novel (1847–48) by Thackeray.
RELATED CONTENT
Dictionary.com’s 2015 Word Of The Year: IdentityIn 2015, Dictionary.com saw a number of themes emerge in the words that gained enough traction to be added to the dictionary along with words that trended in user lookups. The most prominent theme across both of these areas was in the expanding and increasingly fluid nature of conversations about gender and sexuality. Additionally, the theme of racial identity led to some of the most …
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Vanity Fair
noun
(often not capitals) literary the social life of a community, esp of a great city, or the world in general, considered as symbolizing worldly frivolity
Word Origin for Vanity Fair
from Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Vanity Fair
(1847–1848) A novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray. The leading character is Becky Sharp, an unscrupulous woman who gains wealth and influence by her cleverness.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.