Middle French carriere, from Old Occitan carriera street, from Medieval Latin carraria road for vehicles, from Latin carrus car

Reduce Speed Signmeaning

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.

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“Career.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/career. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.

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."