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If you’re already familiar with career’s equestrian history, surely you joust. The noun career dates to the early 16th century, when it referred to the speed of something moving along a particular course. To go “in full career” or “at full career” was to hurtle, barrel, blaze, or zip, a meaning employed by Sir Walter Scott in a jousting scene in his historical romance Ivanhoe: “The trumpets sounded, and the knights charged each other in full career.” The verb career thus originally conveyed the action of a horse or rider making a short gallop or charge, as when the very aptly named John Speed wrote in his 1611 Historie of Great Britain “his horse of a fierce courage carrierd [=careered] as he went.” It later gained additional senses applied to the movement of horses, such as “to prance or caracole” (“to turn to one side and another in running”), as well as one—“to rush forward quickly and recklessly”—that can be applied to anything or anyone feeling their oats, velocity-wise.
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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 career in a Sentence
Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA Today, 29 Apr. 2025
Cheech and Chong’s career, like their routines, was a perfect storm of happenstance.
—Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 28 Apr. 2025
Preezy Brown, VIBE.com, 24 Mar. 2025
Scenes come and go with the fast click of a camera shutter, while the story careers through an unending series of switchbacks.
—Tom Gliatto, People.com, 20 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for career
Cite this Entry
“Career.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/career. Accessed 4 May. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
career
1 of 2 noun
career
2 of 2 verb
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