Career

How to spell career

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce career

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does career mean?

1. nounA person's chosen profession or the general progression of their working life.
2. verbTo move swiftly and in an uncontrolled, headlong way.

Career in a sentence

• noun

  She built a successful career in corporate law over two decades.

• verb

  The driver lost control and watched the van career down the icy slope.

• noun

  A sabbatical gave him time to rethink his entire career.

• verb

  Shoppers scattered as the runaway trolley began to career across the car park.

Where does career come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes ultimately from the Latin carrus, meaning a 'wheeled vehicle' or 'cart', which gave rise to the Late Latin carraria, a 'road for carts' or 'carriageway'. This passed into Italian as carriera, a 'racecourse' or 'gallop', and then into French as carriere, meaning a course over which a horse runs at full speed. English borrowed it in the 1500s, at first to describe a swift, headlong gallop or charge, which still survives in the verb meaning to rush along uncontrollably. By the 1800s the figurative sense of one's 'course through working life' had taken over as the dominant meaning. The single 'r' in the middle is the classic trap: the word looks as though it should double like 'carry' or 'carrier', but it keeps just one 'r' after the first vowel and one before the ending.

How the word is built

• career (from Latin carrus 'wheeled vehicle', via the sense of a 'road' or 'racecourse')