Meanings
nounvanitas (plural vanitases)
plural vanitases
- paintingA type of still life painting, symbolic of mortality, characteristic of Dutch painting of the 16th and 17th centuries.
In her straight-ahead photographs of storefronts, an arrangement of shoes or shrink-wrapped furniture becomes a vanitas still life.
2009 March 6, Holland Cotter, “Change and Permanence, Captured by Cameras”, in New York Times
Origin
- Latinvānitās
- Englishvanitas
From Latin vānitās. Doublet of vanity.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Mandarin 虛空畫 /虚空画
- 虛空畫 /虚空画 (xūkōnghuà)type of still life painting
Japanese ヴァニタス
- ヴァニタス (vanitasu)type of still life painting
Polish vanitas
- vanitastype of still life painting
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
APA
vanitas. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vanitas
MLA
“vanitas.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vanitas. Accessed November 2, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “vanitas,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vanitas.
Source: vanitas on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.