vanitas

English

A vanitas painting by Harmen Steenwijck

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin vanitas

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^[1]:

     In her straight-ahead photographs of storefronts, an arrangement of shoes or shrink-wrapped furniture becomes a vanitas still life.

Translations

type of still life painting

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 虛空畫／虚空画 (xūkōnghuà), 虚空画 (xūkōnghuà)

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Japanese: ヴァニタス (vanitasu)

See also

• vanitas on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Ivatans

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Latin

Etymology

vānus +‎ -tās.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈu̯aː.ni.taːs/, [ˈu̯äːnɪt̪äːs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈva.ni.tas/, [ˈväːnit̪äs]

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

Descendants

• Aromanian: vãnãtati
• Asturian: vanidá
• Catalan: vanitat
• English: vanity
• French: vanité
• Galician: vaidade

• Italian: vanità
• Old Galician-Portuguese: vãydade
• Old Spanish: vanedad
• Portuguese: vaidade, vanidade
• Romanian: vanitate, vântă
• Spanish: vanidad

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.