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Careen and Career
Some people might be confused by the warning to not confuse careen and career, because the most common sense of career ("a profession") is not much like any of the meanings of careen. But when employed as a verb, career does have some semantic overlap with careen; both words may be used to mean "to go at top speed especially in a headlong manner." A car, for instance, may either careen or career. Some usage guides hold, however, that the car is only careening if there is side-to-side motion, as careen has other meanings related to movement, among which is "to sway from side to side."
Examples of careen in a Sentence
Trevor Hughes, USA Today, 11 June 2025
No White House since then has dared to go around a state chief to activate domestic troops, and the seeming trigger for a careening upswing is an 1807 law that allows the military to be used to quash a domestic uprising.
—Philip Elliott, Time, 9 June 2025
Less than a couple miles out, Crawford lost control of the vehicle and went careening off the road, going airborne into a tree.
—Kendall Capps, MSNBC Newsweek, 31 May 2025
Simon & Schuster, June 3 Image Great Black Hope
by Rob Franklin
David’s world is careening off a cliff.
—Laura Thompson, New York Times, 22 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for careen
Cite this Entry
“Careen.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/careen. Accessed 2 Jul. 2025.
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