How To Use Vainly In A Sentence
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Catholic, a name vainly usurped by the Romanists, ii.
Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. IV.
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Still more profound a touch is that where Ottima, daring her lover to the "one thing that must be done; you know what thing: Come in and help to carry," says, with affected lightsomeness, "This dusty pane might serve for looking-glass," and simultaneously exclaims, as she throws them rejectingly from her nervous fingers, "Three, four -- four grey hairs!" then with an almost sublime coquetry of horror turns abruptly to Sebald, saying with a voice striving vainly to be blithe --
Life of Robert Browning
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The "hup" was rather an exclamation of necessity than of delight, inasmuch as that it was caused by Davie coming suddenly down flat on the ice in the act of vainly attempting to go leap-frog over Mivins's head.
The World of Ice
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The two ships were brought into such a situation that the muzzles of their guns came in contact, and in this manner the action continued with the greatest fury for two hours, during which time Jones, who had far more men than his opponent, vainly attempted to board, and the "Serapis" was set on fire ten or twelve times.
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. From George III. to Victoria
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The gods are dispassionate, jealous, vainly superior, and sometimes unfair and bitter.
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the city fathers tried vainly to find a solution
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* The effect of this little bit of science may be thus stated -- Men for two years had been punished as refractory for not making all day two thousand revolutions per hour of a 15 lb. crank, when all the while it was a _45 lb. crank_ they had been vainly struggling against all day.
It Is Never Too Late to Mend
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She had listened from a respectful distance, and with the humble deference born of years of bondage, to the honeyed words with which the great lady deigned to cajole a girl-slave: but when Dea Flavia had finished speaking and the chorus of admiration had died down around her, the freedwoman, with steps which she vainly tried to render firm, approached to the foot of the catasta and stood between the great lady and her own child.
"Unto Caesar"
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The team captain vainly tried to rally his troops.
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The two young gentlemen, having seen their blooming charges safely within the door of the Alms-House, and vainly endeavored to look through the keyhole at them going up-stairs, scuffle away together with that sensation of blended imbecility and irascibility which is equally characteristic of callow youth and inexperienced Thomas Cats when retiring together from the society of female friends who seem to be still on the fence as regards their ultimate preferences.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870
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Cameron released the man, who fell onto all fours, vainly trying to suck air in.
MINUTES TO BURN
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He hunted vainly through his pockets for a piece of paper.
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Shadowy clouds completely obscured the moon, leaving a meager handful of stars to vainly attempt to provide light.
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He had the image of himself, like a goblin or ghost, haunting her gravesite for weeks, vainly trying to protect her.
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The murmurs would die away, and then rise again, and from time to time we knew that a baffled bicycler was pulling at our door, or vainly bumping against it.
Seven English Cities
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Part of her, a tiny voice of caution in the back of her head, struggled vainly to be heard.
LOST SUMMER
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You desire vainly that I seek you.
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And Carinthia Jane was proclaimed by John Rose Mackrell (to his dying day the poor gentleman tried vainly to get the second syllable of his name accentuated) a young woman who would outlive twice over the husband she had.
The Amazing Marriage — Volume 3
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It then flourished from 1925 to 1932 in Dessau, an industrial backwater where the school's first director, Walter Gropius, built its image-making headquarters (see illustration on page 25); and it ultimately but vainly sought refuge in cosmopolitan Berlin, where it closed in 1933, when Hitler took power.
The Brief, Glorious Life Of Bauhaus (New York Review)
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The reactionary government tried vainly to take the steam out of the protest movement.
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The curious white ale, or lober agolwhich, within the memory of man, used to exist in Devonshire and Cornwall, but which, even half a century ago, I have vainly sought therewas, I believe, drunk quite new; but then it was not pure malt and not hopped at all, but had eggs (pulletsperm in the brewage) and other foreign bodies in it.
Beer and Cider
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While the nobles and their followers, that crowd of _bravi_ that the statutes against maintenance had vainly tried to suppress, strewed the fields of
A Literary History of the English People From the Origins to the Renaissance
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Vainly had Silverstein striven to stay the spouse's wrath.
Chapter 2
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He vainly tries to protect an absconding teenager from the police.
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The woman cranks away vainly at a machine that looks prehistoric but the man thinks faster.
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The team captain vainly tried to rally his troops.
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But on April 30, 1883, Manet died, exhausted by his work and struggles, of locomotor ataxy, after having vainly undergone the amputation of a foot to avoid gangrene.
The French Impressionists (1860-1900)
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Only the iron gallery, on a level with the entrance from the road, was left unsubmerged; the central depth had been converted into a huge tank of muddy water, while the sightseer looked vainly for the engines and carriages that lay drowned beneath.
The Paris Flood of 1910 | Edwardian Promenade
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Two weeks had passed since Martin had seen him, and he vainly cudgelled his brains for some cause of offence.
Chapter 33
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Nothing therefore could be done but to cut loose the fastenings that yet bound them to the frame they had so vainly put their trust in; and scraping a deep hole in the sand, the remains were thus inhumed together.
Ralph Rashleigh
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I began to try and vainly struggle, tears running down my cheeks and leaving a black trail like discoloured blood as my eyeliner dissolved with the salty solution.
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Richard Haryson (1535) was fain to confess, in the deed of surrender, that the monks had, “under the shadow of their rule, vainly detestably, and ungodlily devoured their yearly revenues in continual ingurgitations of their carrion bodies, and in support of their over voluptuous and carnal appetites.” {243b} We cannot but suspect that such language was that of their enemies, put into their mouths, when resistance was no longer possible.
Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter
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Delays mount up as aircraft circle the skies, vainly waiting for a landing slot.
Times, Sunday Times
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We had, vainly and absurdly, tried to unroll the garden hose.
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He also butted his head vainly against the British and by 1949 he was despised at home and abroad as an ineffectual playboy.
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My eyes snapped open and I sat up, trying vainly to fight off the bleariness of sleep.
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Tom and Ned hurried to the room where the unfortunate chemist had been put to bed, to find him out in the hall, wrapped in a bedquilt, and with Mrs. Baggert vainly trying to quiet him.
Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters, or, Battling with Flames from the Air
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The team captain vainly tried to rally his troops.
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The "hup" was rather an exclamation of necessity than of delight inasmuch as that it was caused by Davie coming suddenly down flat on the ice in the act of vainly attempting to go leap-frog over Mivins's head.
The World of Ice
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the disheartened instructor tried vainly to arouse their interest
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While the woman goggled at me, her brain vainly attempting to take precious processing cycles away from analyzing reality TV to comprehend what had just been said to her, I stepped around her, handed my jar of salsa to the cashier, and completed my purchase.
The Weather's Fine, Wish They Weren't Here
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The reactionary government tried vainly to take the steam out of the protest movement.
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After a chance encounter in a cafe ends up in a brief liaison, he tries vainly to track her down.
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You have always been fond of quaint and archaic words, so I shall speak to you in your own idiom, rather than vainly attempting to adopt the modes and manners of modern English, as she is spoken today.
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As I was sitting there, seeing senior retreat leaders come in, I vainly prayed you would be one of them.
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All this while, Burnell was conscious of Murray-Roberts in the front row, red of face, vainly trying to suppress convulsive laughter.
SOMEWHERE EAST OF LIFE
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We have no knowledge that the luminiferous ether is attracted by gravity; it is sometimes called imponderable because some people vainly imagine that it has no weight; I call it matter with the same kind of rigidity that this elastic jelly has.
The Wave Theory of Light
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Physicists vainly endeavour to reduce the rôle of sensation -- Mathematical, energetical, and mechanical theories of universe -- Mechanical model formed from sensation -- Instance of tuning-fork -- No one sensation any right to hegemony over others
The Mind and the Brain Being the Authorised Translation of L'Âme et le Corps
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This appeal emanated from the cache, where Langham was vainly struggling with divers quarters of frozen moose.
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE
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One of the reasons Hollywood has always liked sword-and-sandal epics is that it has vainly seen itself in the lascivious, bacchanalian lifestyle of the rich and Roman.
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Orlando, utterly unable to answer this raillery, now wished her once more health and happiness; and said (again vainly attempting to appear unconcerned) – 'I really do not love to contradict ladies, my dear Mrs Lennard! so you must have your own way, however your suspicions may wrong me.'
The Old Manor House
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Vainly seeks the eye a flow'ret 'mid the desolation drear,
The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon
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Doubtless it will reach your father's house ere long, if it be not, as is more likely, already there, for it is the vile work of one they call a puritan, though where even the writer can vainly imagine the purity of such work to lie, let the pamphlet itself raise the question.
St. George and St. Michael
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Never before was such lightning and thunder of artillery heard, most of which, notwithstanding, went vainly from the Spanish, flying clear over the
In Doublet and Hose A Story for Girls
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One has certainly not said all that there is to say for Titian when one has called him an observer. < i > Il y mettait du sien , and I use the term to designate roughly the artist whose apprehension, infinitely deep and strong when applied to the single figure or to easily balanced groups, spends itself vainly on great dramatic combinations -- or rather leaves them ungauged.
Italian Hours
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One of these is to drive ten nails into the door in a pentagonal form -- a very effectual barrier; for the doppie, on beholding it, can neither advance nor recede, but remains there literally spell-bound till the witching-time of night is past, vainly endeavouring to reckon the number of nails, but unable to get beyond the fifth.
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852
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He shouted after them, vainly trying to attract their attention.
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'I must insist,' he called vainly after the doctor, who prudently circled about the house and waited a quarter of an hour as he sat upon the wall, eavesdropping on the conversation of the two young people.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
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The ego is a vainly expressed personality.
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Think not we long remained blind to the idiotical folly of our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasure of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren desert, valuable only in the eyes of superstition.
Ivanhoe
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He sought vainly for the answer.
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In the 1950s, she was vainly hanging on to her former glamour-girl image.
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Delays mount up as aircraft circle the skies, vainly waiting for a landing slot.
Times, Sunday Times
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It was more sensed than seen, a darker blot in the gale-lashed dark, and he frowned and raised one hand, trying vainly to shield his eyes in an effort to see better.
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Hollywood nymphets cower in the jungle, vainly trying to hide their voluptuousness from James Brown as he looms in the background, poised for another brush with the law.
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Coleraine, sleep at Limavady; and meantime Salemina was to read all the books at her command, and guess, we hoped vainly, the why and wherefore of these stops.
Penelope's Irish Experiences
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Back and peering into the binnacle, he listened vainly for another wail from Jerry in the hope of verifying his first hasty bearing.
CHAPTER VI
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Zeno as the inventor of the antinomic mode of argu - mentation or the “skeptical method” “of watching, or rather provoking, a conflict of assertions, not for the purpose of deciding in favor of one or the other side, but of investigating whether the object of the contro - versy is not perhaps a deceptive appearance which each vainly tries to grasp, and in regard to which, even if there were no opposition to overcome, neither can arrive at any result” (Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd. ed., p. 451; all page references to this edition).
ANTINOMY OF PURE REASON
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Narby was in full flight, with Hugh and Ertz calling vainly after him.
Destiny Narrowly Avoided
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It was plain that he had been misled for once, that what he suspected had not come to pass, and that he must seek elsewhere the light which had gleamed upon him vainly from the Danish town.
Mary Anerley
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Throughout a stormy autumn the U - boats struggled vainly to regain the ascendancy in the North Atlantic.
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We tried vainly to discover what had happened.
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The taxi driver took a look around, tried vainly to make peace, did not like what he was seeing, leapt back in his taxi, and skedaddled.
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I can only vainly aspire to ever possessing a fraction of the skills of Proust or Fitzgerald.
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We cease trying vainly to understand the secrets of the Universe as we have hitherto tried to do.
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And I thought it out in camp, silent, morose, while the children squabbled about me unnoticed, and while Arunga, my mate-woman, vainly scolded me and urged me to go hunting for more meat for the many of us.
Chapter 21
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These basalts were covered with a mammiform substance, which I vainly sought on the Peak of Teneriffe, and which is known by the names of volcanic glass, glass of Muller, or hyalite: it is the transition from the opal to the chalcedony.
Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America
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Shadowy clouds completely obscured the moon, leaving a meager handful of stars to vainly attempt to provide light.
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Men were vainly attempting to worship angels as emanations from God in a step-ladder effort to reach God.
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The meaning of the term that’s stigmatized is actually “to publish vainly.”
Self-Publishing Revisited: A Discussion – Brian Keene
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Edwards vainly attempted a few explanations before bowing to the reality that running for president, even if you are blessed with natural political gifts, is never child's play.
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Ere she had closed the door on me and herself, the corridor was already filled with day-pupils, tearing down their cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from the wooden pegs on which they were suspended; the shrill voice of a maitresse was heard at intervals vainly endeavouring to enforce some sort of order; vainly, I say: discipline there was none in these rough ranks, and yet this was considered one of the best-conducted schools in Brussels.
The Professor, by Charlotte Bronte
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He spares nothing to obtain the honour of serving them, and he vainly boasts of his own meanness.
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The reactionary government tried vainly to take the steam out of the protest movement.
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Or is it the way that British nationals were left to their own devices while vainly trying to summon help from local embassies?
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156 Within fourscore years after the death of Christ, 157 the humane Pliny laments the magnitude of the evil which he vainly attempted to eradicate.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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He then set out for Virginia for what he vainly hoped would be a peaceful retirement.
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Paul Richter said of all the definitions of the comic: namely, that their sole merit is _to be themselves comic_ and to produce, in reality, the fact, which they vainly try to define logically.
Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic
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The instructor struggled vainly to open his parachute.
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For those who are clicking from FiveThirtyEight to Politico to Drudge and back again vainly searching for fresh information on Tuesday’s elections, there’s good news: Web sites like Twitter and YouTube are providing real-time updates from the polls, voter by voter.
Taking the Digital Pulse of Voters, One at a Time - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
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he tried vainly to impress his neglecters
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He changed the spanner for one clearly the wrong size and tried vainly to tighten the nut again.
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He then set out for Virginia for what he vainly hoped would be a peaceful retirement.
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Meals, tea and other traditions (this family being from South-East Asia) form part of the glue which holds them all together - What a shame society and families at large have forgotten the importance of coming together (whether in quietness or celebration) to enjoy the simple things of life - no need for high-tech, imagination-killing technology or crude worldly intrusions vainly attempting to pass themselves off as "entertainment".
A Handful of Quiet
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Her arms were about him, her lips on his; and he who had, until now, been a portless derelict, who had vainly sought a haven in art, an anchorage in the service of God, had drifted at last into the world's most sheltered harbor -- a woman's love.
The Moccasin Maker
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The reactionary government tried vainly to take the steam out of the protest movement.
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As they rode, Miri's horse sidled sideways nervously away from Amniteri, and Miri tried vainly to rein him in.
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Jane was proclaimed by John Rose Mackrell (to his dying day the poor gentleman tried vainly to get the second syllable of his name accentuated) a young woman who would outlive twice over the husband she had.
The Amazing Marriage — Complete
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Delays mount up as aircraft circle the skies, vainly waiting for a landing slot.
Times, Sunday Times
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Instead, you stand meekly, wearing your most hopeful expression, vainly attempting to read the seating plan upside down.
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I have been crusading vehemently but vainly in the professional and national press to prod artisans to bake to finish, without which the bread cannot attain its sensorial apogee.
The Rise of Nations
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We vainly debated what we liked most about the Arctic.
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But if I did so, and came presently to doun, which is the classical Scots spelling of the English down, I should begin to feel uneasy; and if I went on a little farther, and came to a classical Scots word, like stour or dour or clour, I should know precisely where I was that is to say, that I was out of sight of land on those high seas of spelling reform in which so many strong swimmers have toiled vainly.
Underwoods: Note
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The term logic has two different meanings, an ancient and a modern one, and we vainly try to bridge the gulf between them.
Euthydemus
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We cease trying vainly to understand the secrets of the Universe as we have hitherto tried to do.
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Her activism was derided as ideologically dilettantish from an actress encased within the Hollywood system and vainly seeking authenticity through scattergun sloganeering.
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People whose tenor of life is godless often imagine vainly that they will have time to take care of the end when it comes.
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I've had trip out in the sun to deliver a magazine which had been mis-delivered by the Royal Mail numpties, and to vainly attempt to get a belt for my vacuum cleaner at Currys.
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He changed the spanner for one clearly the wrong size and tried vainly to tighten the nut again.
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And how his mother vainly repeats the same refrain, oblivious to their lack of interest.
Times, Sunday Times
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Delays mount up as aircraft circle the skies, vainly waiting for a landing slot.
Times, Sunday Times
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De Marmont had vainly tried in this wild gallopade to distinguish his rival's face among this mass of foreigners.
The Bronze Eagle A Story of the Hundred Days
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He shouted after them, vainly trying to attract their attention.
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His foreign policy was, as Richelieu's had often been, indifferent to the interests of Catholicism: the Peace of Westphalia gave its solemn sanction to the legal existence of Calvinism in Germany, and, while the nuncio vainly protested, Protestant princes were rewarded with secularized bishoprics and abbacies for their political opposition to
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 10: Mass Music-Newman
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And how his mother vainly repeats the same refrain, oblivious to their lack of interest.
Times, Sunday Times
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This made her vainly imagine that there was no positive proof against her, and that circumstantials only would not convict her.
Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences
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He vainly affects a George Raft hairdo and would-be virile gestures that go soft before they are half over.
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There was the satisfaction of making a neat landfall off Cape Ortegal, and flying along the Biscay coast just within sight of the harbour of Ferrol, where Hornblower had spent weary months in captivity — he tried vainly to make out the Dientes del Diablo where he had earned his freedom — and then rounding the far corner of Europe and setting a fresh course, with the wind miraculously still serving, as they plunged along, close-eauled now, to weather Cape Roca.
Hornblower And The Hotspur
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Unfortunately I had forgotten a sulphur-still; and the engineer vainly attempted to extract the ore by luting together two iron mortars, and by heating them to a red heat.
The Land of Midian
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The reactionary government tried vainly to take the steam out of the protest movement.
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He waited until Trimmer was out of sight, then hunted vainly through his pockets for a piece of paper.
STAGE FRIGHT
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By taking myself firmly in hand, and saying, "It was yonder to the left where I met my kind bicycler, and we vainly communed of my evanescent battle-field," and so keeping on, I got safely to the station with nothing more romantic in my experience than a thrilling apprehension.
Seven English Cities
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Gabrielle lay motionless on the ground, curled up in a ball, vainly trying to stop the ponding, flashes and sharp jabs of pain coming from all over her body, it seemed.
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The few games created for a threesome vainly searching for a fourth tend to be unexciting and overly dependent on luck.
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An explosion of pain blinded me as I reeled and staggered, trying vainly to catch my balance.
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We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom of our own.
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I may have somewhat drunkenly shinnied up a fence to climb onto Ben's fire escape and spent a while rapping vainly on his back door.
Adventures of a Couch-Hopping Scribbler Part 2: That Toddlin Town
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A few tried vainly to coalesce into a hardier entity.
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Victims of toxic gas canisters fired by Isræli troops writhe in convulsive pain on hospital beds, screaming at the top of their lungs while family and medical aides try vainly to restrain them.
Current Movie Reviews, Independent Movies - Film Threat
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Work stopped in 1970, leaving blocked arches in the incomplete north transept, only a few bays of the intended cloister, and reinforcement rods protruding vainly from the stump of the crossing tower.
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As Confederates tried vainly to delay Union advances on Chancellorsville, General Jackson took a bullet in the arm.
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The enemy vainly attempted destroying the bridge.
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She plays the pretty hoyden that Conroy vainly longs for.
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His black wings flapped vainly in the wind and water as they tried to regain the precious equilibrium of balance.
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Parliament; that nobody there had a greater esteem for him, with which I hoped that the innocent freedom I had taken to speak my mind was not inconsistent; that as to the non-admission of the herald, had it not been for the motion made by M. Broussel, I should have fallen into the snare through overcredulity, and have given my vote for that which might perhaps have ended in the destruction of the city, and involved myself in what has since fully proved to be a crime by the Queen's late solemn approbation of the contrary conduct; and that, as to the envoy, I was silent till I saw most of them were for giving him audience, when I thought it better to vote the same way than vainly to contest it.
Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete
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Yet a khan, whose power they vainly magnified, is said to have received at their hands the rites of baptism, and even of ordination; and the fame of Prester or Presbyter John 117 has long amused the credulity of
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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She sought any work she could get, including temporary jobs in a clerical pool, while vainly applying for arts fellowships.
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She struggled vainly to get away, but eventually gave up.
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I felt my anger rising and tried vainly to quench it, the flames tickling me, begging to be let loose upon the man I now hated most.