vainglorious
/ˌveɪnˈɡlɔː.ɹi.əs/adjective
vainglorious is an adjective meaning “Possessing excessive vanity or unwarranted pride” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-A-I-N-G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 12 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does vainglorious mean?
adjective
- 1
Possessing excessive vanity or unwarranted pride.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce vainglorious?
- US /ˌveɪnˈɡlɔː.ɹi.əs/
Vainglorious has 4 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-vainglorious.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of vainglorious
- more vainglorious comparative
- most vainglorious superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is vainglorious?
Vainglorious appears about once in every 12 million words in written English, the 103,949th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Vainglorious in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense with excessive vanity or unwarranted pride:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | orgueilleux, vaniteux, fanfaron |
| German | hochmütig, dünkelhaft, aufgeblasen, prahlerisch |
| Portuguese | vanglorioso |
| Spanish | vanidoso, soberbio, fachendoso, perdonavidas, fanfarrón, vanaglorioso |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does vainglorious come from?
From Middle English veinglorious, from Old French vain glorios, from Latin vānus (“empty”) + glōriōsus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).