Sentence examples similar to focused in vain from inspiring English sources

Consumed by hatred and beginning to believe rumors that Miguel I had murdered their father, Pedro I turned his focus on Portugal and tried in vain to garner international support for Maria II's rights.

The Centre, which began in 1974 and closed in 1992, was the UN's attempt to focus on the global corporations and try (in vain) to develop a code of practice that global corporations might reasonably be expected to follow.

All last year, the forty-eight-year-old Midwestemer labored, largely in vain, to persuade the campaign to focus on America's economic anxieties.

They focus on a girl from a poor western Massachusetts town struggling in vain to escape her roots.

But in vain.

Parker chased in vain.

It was in vain.

We screamed in vain.

They rail in vain.

A wish in vain.

All in vain.