The Winding Histories of “Vein” and “Vain”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Marion Morrison from Powell, Wyoming.

Hello, Marion. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Marion. What’s up?

Thanks. Well, I was talking with my sister about vein procedures, as in on your legs.

And she had a procedure done a couple of decades ago, and I asked her why she did it, what her symptoms were.

And she said, well, it was pure vanity.

And in my mind, I thought, okay, she was being vain.

And whenever I find words that come up organically in the same moment, it always makes me wonder if they have some kind of a common origin.

So vanity coming from being vain and the veins of one’s legs, I realize they’re spelled slightly differently, but I wondered if they had a common root.

Actually, they’re completely different words, completely different origins.

They do have in common the fact that they’re both really old.

They’ve both been around for about 700 years or so.

But the word vein, like a blood vessel, comes to us through Old French,

And that goes back to a Latin word, vena, V-E-N-A, which simply means blood vessel.

And I think the much more interesting word of these two is not the vein, the noun, that’s the blood vessel,

But vain the adjective, because that goes back, again, via Old French, to the Latin word vanus,

V-A-N-U-S, which means empty or void.

And we also get the expression in vain, you know, somebody tried in vain for something to happen.

And over time, by the late 14th century, it just meant silly or foolish.

And then by the late 1600s, it also came to mean conceited.

So it’s gone a long way from the Latin word for empty or void to meaning silly or foolish.

And ultimately, you know, somebody that you might kind of laugh at because they’re conceited.

And you mentioned vanity.

And Grant and I were just having a conversation about the expression vanity fair, like the magazine or the book.

And you might never have thought about the meaning of that, but it’s literally a fair, like a place of a festival for the vain, for people who are conceited.

Yeah.

What’s the original source of that, Martha?

The original?

Well, there’s a reference to it in Pilgrim’s Progress or the idea of vanity, like a place called vanity where people were, you know, where vain people lived.

Well, I really appreciate your knowledge and research on that and for sharing it.

And I really appreciate your show.

Well, we really appreciate your calling, Mary, and thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Take care now.

Thank you, Martha. Thank you, Grant. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

You go about your day, and you have these questions, and you’re like,

Oh, I’ve got to ask Martha and Grant, and then you forget about it by the end of the day.

Well, this time, don’t forget. Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Write those questions down, and then email us, words@waywordradio.org.