All the harassment and the tub-thumping, the misleading of Rachel Nickell's family and the denigration by the judge was in vain; a vast exercise in distraction left the real killer free to commit other crimes.
(They are trying, in vain, to complete an exercise that requires them to say numbers aloud, individually and in sequence).
If the new laws do not hold the parents responsible in a concrete way, all the additions to curriculums and the glossy binders on behavior and responsibility are exercises in vain.
Many trans women go through a masculinization phase before coming out as trans — sometimes by joining the military, sometimes by bulking up through exercise — in the vain hope that, by embracing an extreme of masculinity, they will find relief from the pressing sense of not-rightness.
The book shows how the latter succeeds in teaching contemptuous Mary and vain Caroline to avoid anger, exercise compassion, love truth and virtue, and respect the whole of God's creation.
In Nike's case, simply opening the app or wearing one of their body-mounted devices alleviates the user's fear that the exercise will be in vain.
Ms. Denizot started her company after trying in vain, while recuperating from gastric bypass surgery, to exercise by biking, but could not find a bike that was comfortable and safe.
At gyms where this isn't common, taking off your shirt can make you look like a vain "meathead" in comparison to the other people exercising.
And yet, as the clock counted down, Madeleine Albright, America's secretary of state, sought in vain to get the state's governor, Jim Gilmore, to exercise clemency.Her intervention had to do with politics, not morality.
