vanitas

English
A vanitas painting by Harmen Steenwijck

Etymology

From Latin vanitas. Doublet of vanity.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈvæn.ɪˌtɑs/

Noun

vanitas (plural vanitases)

  1. (painting) A type of still life painting, symbolic of mortality, characteristic of Dutch painting of the 16th and 17th centuries.
    • 2009 March 6, Holland Cotter, “Change and Permanence, Captured by Cameras”, in New York Times‎:
      In her straight-ahead photographs of storefronts, an arrangement of shoes or shrink-wrapped furniture becomes a vanitas still life.

Translations

See also

Further reading

Anagrams

Latin

Etymology

vānus +‎ -tās.

Pronunciation

Noun

vānitās f (genitive vānitātis); third declension

  1. emptiness, nothingness
    vanitas vanitatum ― vanity of vanities
  2. falsity, falsehood, deception, untruth, untrustworthiness, fickleness
  3. vanity, vainglory

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative vānitās vānitātēs
Genitive vānitātis vānitātum
Dative vānitātī vānitātibus
Accusative vānitātem vānitātēs
Ablative vānitāte vānitātibus
Vocative vānitās vānitātēs

Derived terms
  • vānitāre

Descendants
  • ⇒? Aromanian: vãnãtati
  • → Asturian: vanidá (learned)
  • → Catalan: vanitat (learned)
  • → English: vanitas (learned)
  • Old Franco-Provençal: vanitá
    • Franco-Provençal: vanitá
  • → Old French: vanité (learned)
  • → Friulian: vanitât (learned)
  • → Italian: vanità (learned)
  • → Piedmontese: vanità (learned)
  • Old Galician-Portuguese: vãydade, vãidade
  • → Portuguese: vanidade (learned)
  • Romanian: vântă, vintă
  • → Romanian: vanitate (learned)
  • Old Spanish: vanedad
    • Spanish: vanedad
  • → Spanish: vanidad (learned)

References
  • “vanitas”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “vanitas”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • vanitas in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • vanitas in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
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