Meanings
- derogatorySociety, especially high society, as a place of self-interest and the superficial.
Such a complete Vanity Fair as the Palais Royal, is not, I imagine, to be found any where else
1828, William Buell Sprague, Letters from Europe, in 1828: first published in the New York observer, page 492 more examples
And how will your conscience answer one day for carrying so many bonny lasses to barter modesty for conceit and levity at the metropolitan Vanity Fair?
1827, [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Chronicles of the Canongate; […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Co.] for Cadell and Co.; London: Simpkin and Marshall, →OCLC, page 46Nash, the son of a glass-merchant — Brummell, the hopeful of a small shopkeeper — became the intimates of princes, dukes, and fashionables; were petty kings of Vanity Fair, and were honoured by their subjects.
1860, Katherine Thomson, John Cockburn Thomson, The wits and beaux of society, by Grace and Philip Wharton, page 97
Origin
From “Vanity Fair”, location of a debauched year-long festival in the 1678 novel The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Vanity Fair. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Vanity%20Fair
“Vanity Fair.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Vanity%20Fair. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Vanity Fair,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Vanity%20Fair.
Source: Vanity Fair on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.