In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.
Source: tatoeba (5749643)
Vainly
//ˈveɪnli//
Synonyms for "vainly" (11 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (3)
Strong matches (3)
Related words (5)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Translations
16 translations across 9 languages.
Catalan
1 entries- vanament adv (in vain)
Esperanto
1 entries- vane adv (in vain)
Hungarian
1 entries- hiába adv (in vain)
Old Church Slavonic
1 entries- ашоуть adv (in vain)
Plautdietsch
1 entries- vejäfs adv (in vain)
Polish
4 entries- bezskutecznie adv (in vain)
- daremnie adv (in vain)
- na darmo adv (in vain)
- na próżno adv (in vain)
Russian
3 entries- зря adv (in vain)
- напрасно adv (in vain)
- тщетно adv (in vain)
Spanish
1 entries- vanamente adv (in vain)
Turkish
3 entries- beyhude adv (in vain)
- boş yere adv (in vain)
- boşuna adv (in vain)
Sample sentences
10 total sentences available.
Thrice round the neck with longing I essayed / to clasp the phantom in a wild delight; / thrice, vainly clasped, the visionary shade / mocked me embracing, and was lost to sight, / swift as a winged wind or slumber of the night.
Source: tatoeba (6893130)
Morocco is vainly trying to consolidate its dominance in Western Sahara.
Source: tatoeba (10896756)
She repeatedly tried to quit smoking, but vainly.
Source: tatoeba (11409341)
Showing 4 of 10 available sentences.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.