vanité

Vanité is a French noun with several related meanings. Primarily it denotes the quality of being vain or self-regarding. It is cognate with the English vanity. In addition, vanité can refer to specific objects or to distinct cultural meanings, depending on context: a type of furniture, a genre of art, or a moral concept.

In art history, vanité (vanitas) denotes a still-life genre that flourished in 16th- and 17th-century Northern Europe. Vanitas paintings use symbolic objects to remind viewers of life's transience and the futility of worldly wealth and pleasures. Common motifs include skulls, hourglasses, extinguished candles, wilting flowers, rotting fruit, fragile glass, and religious or scientific instruments. The works aim to provoke contemplation of mortality and moral virtue.

In French and furniture terminology, vanité refers to a washstand or vanity cabinet—a piece of furniture with a basin, a countertop, and often a mirror, used for personal grooming. In contemporary usage, the term in French describes a bathroom vanity or washbasin unit; the English equivalent is vanity or vanity unit.

Beyond objects, vanité also denotes the moral trait of excessive pride or self-importance, used in literature, theology, and philosophy to critique self-admiration. The word appears in discussions of aesthetics, design, and cultural history as well.