Vain or vane?
vain is an adjective meaning “Overly proud of oneself, especially concerning appearance; having a high…”; vane is a noun meaning “A weather vane”. Use vain as an adjective and vane as a noun (vain is also a noun: “Acronym of vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia”). They sound the same (/veɪn/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) vain is about 5.5 times as common as vane.
What is the difference between vain and vane?
| vain | vane | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb, noun | noun |
| Meaning | Overly proud of oneself, especially concerning appearance; having a high opinion of one's own accomplishments with slight reason Having no real substance, value, or importance; empty; void; worthless; unsatisfying | A weather vane Any of several usually relatively thin, rigid, flat, or sometimes curved surfaces radially mounted along an axis, as a blade in a turbine or a sail on a… |
| Example | vain toil a vain attempt | none recorded |
| Forms | vainer, vainest | vanes |
| Pronunciation | /veɪn/ /ven/ /vein/ | /veɪn/ /ven/ /veːn/ |
| In writing | 5.5 times per million words | 1.0 times per million words |
Sources: vain and vane in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of vain and vane
vain
- 1
Overly proud of oneself, especially concerning appearance; having a high opinion of one's own accomplishments with slight reason
- 2
Acronym of vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia
- 3
Having no real substance, value, or importance; empty; void; worthless; unsatisfying
- 4
Effecting no purpose; pointless, futile
vain toil a vain attempt
- 5
Showy; ostentatious
vane
- 1
A weather vane
- 2
Any of several usually relatively thin, rigid, flat, or sometimes curved surfaces radially mounted along an axis, as a blade in a turbine or a sail on a windmill, that is turned by or used to turn a…
- 3
The flattened, web-like part of a feather, consisting of a series of barbs on either side of the shaft
- 4
A sight on a sextant or compass
- 5
One of the metal guidance or stabilizing fins attached to the tail of a bomb or other missile
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, vain or vane?
vain appears 5.5 times per million words; vane 1.0 times per million words.
vain 5.5 times per million wordsvane 1.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search vain vs vane?
“vain vs vane” is searched about 480 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“vane vs vain”, “vain or vane”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.