career
noun · adjective · verb
Simple meaning
One's calling in life.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kerirSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kɚˈɪɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
One's calling in life; one's working occupation or profession, especially when pursued seriously and/or over a long period of time.
The general progression of your working or professional life
“The general had had a distinguished career.”
The course, evolution, and ongoing advancement of one's working life, especially in one particular field.
The general course of one's action or conduct in life, or in a particular area of life.
A jouster's path during a joust.
adjective
Doing something professionally, for a living (generally said of something that is not a commonplace job, e.g. criminal activity).
loosely
Synonym of serial ("doing something regularly").
verb
To move rapidly straight ahead, especially in an uncontrolled way.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: One's calling in life; one's working occupation or profession, especially when pursued seriously and/or over a long period of time.
Used this way, career is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use career
- “The general had had a distinguished career.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Calling / course
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Exercising caution or showing care or attention.
Marked by lack of attention or consideration or forethought or thoroughness.
Taking care or paying attention.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Counseling on career opportunities.
A woman who is a careerist.
A man who is a careerist.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.