Career

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kəˈɹɪə/

Definitions

1. A profession or occupation that someone pursues for a significant period of their working life
2. A long-term professional journey or occupation that involves a commitment to growth and advancement within a specific field or industry that significantly shapes one's identity and aspirations
3. A path of professional development and work that encompasses various roles or responsibilities within a chosen discipline, often reflecting personal goals and values over time

Etymology: The word that now describes a working life once meant a racetrack. In Italian, "carriera" was a course for racing, and before that the idea was simply a road, the track a chariot ran along. That sense came from the Latin "carrus," a wheeled vehicle, so the route was named after the cart that travelled it. The Late Latin "carrāria" described a road fit for carts, and Old Occitan turned it into "carreira" before it crossed into French as "carrière." English borrowed the word in the mid 16th century with its original sense intact: a racecourse, or a headlong charge. The notion of a course of life, a path a person follows through their working years, came later as the image of a track shifted from a race to the route someone runs over time. The Proto-Indo-European root behind all this is "*ḱers-," meaning "to run," which is why a word for a vehicle's road ended up describing a whole lifetime's progress.

Synonyms: profession, occupation, vocation, job, field

Antonyms: hobby, pastime