| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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3. Word Choice: New Uses, Common Confusion, and Constraints
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| § 57. careen / career |
| That sportscar went careering down the road. Or did it careen? Careen comes to us via Middle French from the Latin word carina, which meant “the keel of a ship.” The original sense of the English verb was nautical and referred to the way a ship would lean to one side when sailing in windy conditions. Today, when used as a verb of motion, careen typically implies high speed. It often but not always entails a sideways motion or wavering. This sense probably came from the application of the nautical sense of the word to automobiles, which usually only careen, that is, lurch or tip over, when driven at high speeds. | 1 |
| Career, on the other hand, has always been on dry land. It comes from Middle French carriere, “race course,” which comes from Latin carrarria, “carriageway,” and ultimately from Latin carrum, “cart, car.” (The “occupation” sense is an extension of the “race course” meaning, although many might find this metaphor a bit of a stretch today.) As a verb, career originally meant “to move over a course.” In the verb’s first recorded usage, the course was the lane for each horse at a jousting tournament. But the kinds of courses and agents of motion soon proliferated, and the verb now means “to move forward at high speed.” | 2 |
| In short, the sportscar can either career or careen, since both words are acceptable in this use. | 3 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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