career [M16th] The core idea behind the various meanings of career is that of progressing along a course of some kind. Based on Latin carrus, ‘wheeled vehicle’ (see car), career was first used in English to mean both ‘a racecourse’ and ‘a short gallop at full speed, a charge’. From these developed the modern use, for the stages in a person’s professional employment, the course of their working life in the early 19th century. The verb use, ‘to rush headlong, to hurtle’ [M17th], preserves the old sense.