Word of the Day : January 29, 2022

career

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verb kuh-REER

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What It Means

The verb career means "to go at top speed in a headlong manner."

// The tourists gripped their seats and exchanged anxious looks as the bus careered along the narrow roads.

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career in Context

"The planets coalesced out of the disk of gas and dust leftover from the formation of the Sun, and all the extra bits of debris continued careering around, smashing into the planets and moons." — Lauren Fuge, The Cosmos Magazine, 26 Nov. 2021

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.