careen
pronunciation
How to pronounce careen in British English:
UK [kəˈri:n]
How to pronounce careen in American English:
US [kəˈrin]
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- Noun:
- pitching dangerously to one side
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- Verb:
- walk as if unable to control one's movements
- move sideways or in an unsteady way
Word Origin
- careen
- careen: [16] Careen comes ultimately from carīna, the Latin word for a ‘nutshell’, which is related to Greek káruon ‘nut’ and Sanskrit kárakas ‘coconut’. The idea of a ‘nut’ as a metaphor for a ‘boat’ is a fairly obvious one (shell is similarly used for a ‘rowing boat’), and the Latin word came to be used for a ‘ship’s keel’, the raised seam of a walnut perhaps suggesting the line of the timber along the ship’s bottom.It passed via the Genoese dialect carena into French, where a vessel en carène was turned over on its side so that its keel was exposed; hence the verb. The equation of careen with career ‘go wildly’ is 20th-century and of American origin.
- careen (v.)
- 1590s, "to turn a ship on its side" (with the keel exposed), from French cariner, literally "to expose a ship's keel," from Middle French carene "keel" (16c.), from Italian (Genoese dialect) carena, from Latin carina "keel of a ship," originally "nutshell," possibly from PIE root *kar- "hard" (see hard (adj.)). Intransitive sense of "to lean, to tilt" is from 1763, specifically of ships; in general use by 1883. In sense "to rush headlong," confused with career (v.) since at least 1923. [To career is to move rapidly; to careen is to lurch from side to side (often while moving rapidly).] Earlier figurative uses of careen were "to be laid up; to rest." Related: Careened; careening.
Example
- 1. The driver lost control and the car careen down the hill .
- 2. It is likely that shell give up her careen when she gets .
- 3. Illinois seems to careen from one crisis to the next .
- 4. But fears linger that china will careen from the overheated pace of investment of the past two years to the opposite extreme in which companies cannot get any credit .
- 5. If we careen over a cliff on friday and the american government shuts down , hard-working federal workers will stop getting paychecks , but the members of congress responsible for the shutdown are expected to be paid as usual .