Career
Pronunciation
- GenAm IPA: /kəˈrɪr/
- RP IPA: /kəˈrɪə/
- Homophone (non-rhotic accents only): Korea
- Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
Origin
Mid 16th century, from French carrière (a road or racecourse), from Italian carriera, from Old Provencal carreira, from Late Latin carrÄria based on Latin carrus 'wheeled vehicle'. Or from Middle French carriere, from Old Provençal/Occitan carriera ("road"), from Late Latin carrÄria.
Full definition of career
Noun
career
(plural careers)- One's calling in life; a person's occupation; one's profession.
- 2012-01, Douglas Larson, Runaway Devils Lake, Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies. … The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800 square kilometers in northeastern North Dakota.
- General course of action or conduct in life, or in a particular part of it.Washington's career as a soldier
- (archaic) speed
- Wilkinswhen a horse is running in his full career
- 1843, Thomas_Carlyle, , book 3, chapter XIII, DemocracyIt may be admitted that Democracy, in all meanings of the word, is in full career; irresistible by any Ritter Kauderwalsch or other Son of Adam, as times go.
- A jouster's path during a joust.
- 1819: Sir Walter Scott, These knights, therefore, their aim being thus eluded, rushed from opposite sides betwixt the object of their attack and the Templar, almost running their horses against each other ere they could stop their career.
- (obsolete) A short gallop of a horse. 16th-18th c.
- 1603, John Florio, trans. Michel de Montaigne, Essyas, I.48:It is said of Cæsar ... that in his youth being mounted upon a horse, and without any bridle, he made him run a full cariere carriere, make a sodaine stop, and with his hands behind his backe performe what ever can be expected of an excellent ready horse.
- (falconry) The flight of a hawk.
- (obsolete) A racecourse; the ground run over.
- Sir Philip Sidneyto go back again the same career
Verb
- To move rapidly straight ahead, especially in an uncontrolled way.The car careered down the road, missed the curve, and went through a hedge.
- 2011, September 16, Ben Dirs, Rugby World Cup 2011: New Zealand 83-7 Japan, However, the hosts hit back and hit back hard, first replacement hooker Andrew Hore sliding over, then Williams careering out of his own half and leaving several defenders for dead before flipping the ball to Nonu to finish off a scintillating move.