Did you know?
In medieval tournaments, jousting required knights to ride at full speed in short bursts, and the noun career (coming from Middle French carriere) was used to refer to such gallops as well as to the courses that knights rode. The related verb came to mean "to go at top speed." The familiar career, referring to one's job, originated from these uses.
Did you know?
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."
Synonyms
Verb
- barrel
- belt
- blast
- blaze
- blow
- bolt
- bomb [slang]
- bowl
- breeze
- bundle
- bustle
- buzz
- cannonball
- careen
- chase
- course
- crack (on)
- dash
- drive
- fly
- hare
- hasten
- hie
- highball
- hotfoot (it)
- hump
- hurl
- hurry
- hurtle
- hustle
- jet
- jump
- motor
- nip
- pelt
- race
- ram
- rip
- rocket
- run
- rush
- rustle
- scoot
- scurry
- scuttle
- shoot
- speed
- step
- tear
- travel
- trot
- whirl
- whisk
- zip
- zoom
Examples of career in a Sentence
Oliver Darcy, CNN, 12 Apr. 2024
Park Boram, a South Korean singer who has steadily built her career over the past decade, has unexpectedly died at the age of 30, according to her agency Xanadu Entertainment.
—Steven J. Horowitz, Variety, 12 Apr. 2024
Each conductor had prominent international careers guest conducting while in L.A. Mehta was music advisor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and Dudamel has continued his relationship with Venezuela’s El Sistema music education program.
—Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 2024
Karamo Brown is looking back on the early days of his reality TV career on MTV's The Real World Philadelphia as the show marks its 20th anniversary.
—Staff Author, Peoplemag, 11 Apr. 2024
Once the Dodgers opted to go that route, Betts embraced the move as not only the latest challenge of his 11-year career but a necessary obligation to best help the team.
—Jack Harris, Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 2024
No one is going to be terribly satisfied if the league winds up concluding Ohtani did nothing wrong, and implications and snickers will follow him for the rest of career.
—Corbin Smith, Rolling Stone, 31 Mar. 2024
Toward the end of the film, Steve admitted that most of his career was driven by the need to have his father's approval.
—Esme Mazzeo, Peoplemag, 31 Mar. 2024
And Butler hit a three to continue the most accurate three-point season of his career; Butler entered shooting 41.5 percent on threes, well above his 32.8 career average.
—Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 30 Mar. 2024
Rory Smith, New York Times, 1 Mar. 2024
This video is currently not available China and the United States are careering toward an inevitable collision, Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Tuesday, a day after Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a rare direct accusation that Washington was trying to contain China.
—Christian Shepherd, Washington Post, 7 Mar. 2023
The unlucky loner is Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), bright and disruptive, who has already been kicked out of three schools and is careering fast toward his fourth kick.
—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 27 Oct. 2023
The woods, the streams, the snowy hills the friends career off—the natural world is a space as enchanted and real as Hobbes himself.
—Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 23 Oct. 2023
From the clocks positioned along the Pebble Beach golf course, to the Daytonas strapped to the wrists of the drivers careering around the treacherous Corkscrew curve at Laguna Seca, the brand was, quite literally, everywhere in Monterey.
—Victoria Gomelsky, Robb Report, 25 Aug. 2023
But first — a car chase while handcuffed together driving a microscopic yellow Fiat, careering through the streets of Rome like a demented billiard ball.
—Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 6 July 2023
The story careers on to the first of the trilogy’s climaxes.
—Teresa M. Hanafin, BostonGlobe.com, 4 June 2023
The sponsors provide scholarships for National Merit finalists who are children of their employees, residents of communities the company serves, or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.
—Laura Groch, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 May 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'career.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Articles Related to career
Dictionary Entries Near career
Cite this Entry
“Career.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/career. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
career
1 of 2 noun
career
2 of 2 verb
Share