Last night I started reading A Season of Splendor: The Court of Mrs. Astor in Gilded Age New York and the title of Chapter 2 totally tickled me: The Vainglorious Vanderbilts. Huh! There’s an adjective I have to start using more, I thought.
And then today I was reading a tribute to Ted Kennedy on Huff Post and the author, when speculating about how history would have changed had Ted Kennedy won the presidency in 1972, said that we would have been spared “the ridiculous rise of vainglorious Chevy Chase.”
To come across a word as unfashionable as “vainglorious” twice in 24 hours means that I have no choice but to anoint it as my new favorite word. Obviously there is a vainglorious revival underway. Be prepared.
vainglory (noun): boastful vanity
vainglorious (adjective): filled with, characterized by, given to, proceeding from, or showing vainglory.
vaingloriously (adverb): with empty pride
