Can anyone tell me the etymology of the word ‘Vain’? It seems to have two or three distinct meanings that don’t have
a whole lot to do with each other:
[ul]
[li]All efforts were in vain…i.e., they couldn’t do it,[/li][li]He or she was vain…i.e. obsessed with or proud of their looks[/li][li]“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain”…i.e. don’t swear.[/li][/ul]
How did the word Vain come to mean all these things?
According to http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=vain , the word comes from Latin vanus, which means ‘empty’. This seems to me to match all the meanings to some extent. In general, it means ‘having little or no value’.
So, it can be used to mean an empty effort, an empty opinion of oneself, or an empty oath. All these have less value than they should, in the opinion of the speaker.
This question can be asked of about 90% of the words in the English language. It may be impossible to accurately trace the source of all of the derivations and permutations.
BTW there are others:
“The discussion was vain” … i.e. lacking substance
“She acted the vain clown”… i.e. foolish
“The cupboard was vain”… i.e. empty
Well, the bit about not “Taking the name of the Lord in vain” doesn’t mean not to swear at all. It means not to swear for no reason…in line with the “all is in vain” definition. For example, there is nothing wrong with using G-d’s name to swear testimony in court, to attest to a fact that is in doubt, but it would be vain to swear that the sky is blue or that your hand has five fingers.
Most likely the use of “vain” for “obssessed with looks” is derived from that by way of looks being equated with vanity-as-nothingness (after all, beauty is only skin deep), and someone obsessed with vanity would be called a vain person.
When studying the Bible as literature in high school, my teacher explained the “name in vain” commandment as a prohibition against attempting to command God. He explained that contemporary “magicians” ordinarily commanded one god or another to perform their bidding, usually as a curse.
Sadly it’s too late to look up the pithy Shakespeare quote mentioning that anyone may command a god, but it is in doubt whether such being will answer.