in vain
"in-vain" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“in vain” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Without success or a result; ending in failure.
Corpus desk
Index EN-in-vain · in vain · English
in vain · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | in vain |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “in vain” in English
Rare enough to double-check
in vain is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for in vain, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is in vain, spelled I-N- -V-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1Without success or a result; ending in failure.
- 2In a disrespectful manner, without honoring the proper meaning; insincerely or without proper respect.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how in vain appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…]that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain[…]
19th c., Friedrich Nietzsche On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.