vanity fair noun Usage: often capitalized V&F Etymology: from Vanity-Fair, a fair held in the frivolous town of Vanity in Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by John Bunyan died 1688 English preacher and writer : a place of busy pride and empty ostentation < a meretricious vanity fair of the gaudy commonplace — Rose Macaulay > < the Vanity Fair of Washington society — C.G.Bowers >