Vanity Fair: Meaning and Definition of

Van'ity Fair'

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. (in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress) a fair that goes on perpetually in the town of Vanity and symbolizes worldly ostentation and frivolity.
  2. (often l.c.) any place or group, as the world or fashionable society, characterized by or displaying a preoccupation with idle pleasures or ostentation.
  3. (italics) a novel (1847–48) by Thackeray.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.