career
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: homophone: chorea
homophone: Korea (in fast non-rhotic speech)
ipa: /kəˈɹɪə/
ipa: /kəˈɹɪɹ/
ipa: /kəˈɹɪ.ɚ/
ipa: /kəˈrɪjə(r)/
homophone: currier (stress neutralized)
note: spelling pronunciation
ipa: /ˈkarɪjə(r)/
homophone: carrier
rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
Forms: form: careers
Etymology: Mid 16th century, from French carrière (“road; racecourse”), from Italian carriera, from Old Occitan carreira, from Late Latin carrāria based on Latin carrus (“wheeled vehicle”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥sós, from *ḱers- (“to run”); alternatively, from Middle French carriere, from Old Occitan.
Senses: examples: text: When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years, / Then they expect you to pick a career
ref: 1971, “Working Class Hero”, in John Lennon (lyrics), John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band, performed by John Lennon:
glosses: One’s calling in life; one's working occupation or profession, especially when pursued seriously and/or over a long period of time.
examples: text: Washington’s career as a soldier
text: This scandal could ruin his career.
text: He regretted focusing on his career to the exclusion of his family.
text: Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies.
ref: 2012 January 24, Douglas Larson, “Runaway Devils Lake”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 23 May 2012, page 46:
glosses: The course, evolution, and ongoing advancement of one's working life, especially in one particular field.
examples: text: As I explored the possibility of a library science path, having previously been employed in libraries during my school career and afterwards, I decided that I needed to actually experience work in a library setting full time again […]
ref: 2002, Priscilla K. Shontz, Steven J. Oberg, Jump Start Your Career in Library and Information Science, page 21:
glosses: The general course of one's action or conduct in life, or in a particular area of life.
examples: text: What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
ref: c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, act 3, scene 3:
text: when a horse is running in his full career
ref: 1648, John Wilkins, Mathematical Magick:
text: It 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.
ref: 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “chapter XIII, Democracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker):
glosses: Speed.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:
glosses: A jouster's path during a joust.
examples: text: 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 [tr. carriere], make a sodaine stop, and with his hands behind his backe performe what ever can be expected of an excellent ready horse.
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 48, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
text: Such littleness damps the heat, and weakens the force of genius; as we check a horse in his career, and rein him in when we want him to amble
ref: 1756, William Guthrie (translator), Of Eloquence (originally by Quintillian)
glosses: A short gallop of a horse.
topics: falconry
hobbies
hunting
lifestyle
glosses: The flight of a hawk.
examples: text: to think of going back again the same career
ref: a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the folio)”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC:
english: The New Arcadia
translation: The New Arcadia
glosses: A racecourse; the ground run over.
Derived terms: aftercareer
career break
career change
career changer
career criminal
career-defining
careerer
career expo
career fair
career girl
career guide
careerism
careerist
careerless
careerlike
career-limiting move
careerlong
career man
careerman
career politician
careership
careers officer
career suicide
careerwise
careerwoman
career woman
make a career of
midcareer
multicareer
noncareer
portfolio career
postcareer