careen
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Late 16th century, from French carène (“keel”), from Genoese Ligurian carena, from Latin carīna (“keel of a ship”). Doublet of carene and carina.
Pronunciation
[edit]Verb
[edit]careen (third-person singular simple present careens, present participle careening, simple past and past participle careened)
- (nautical, transitive) To heave a ship down on one side so as to expose the other, in order to clean it of barnacles and weed, or to repair it below the water line.
- 1749 July, “Anſon's voyage of the world”, in The Scots Magazine[1], volume xi, pages 333-334:
- However, to avoid ſome inconveniencies relating to port duties, which would have been demanded in the port of Canton, and could not, in honour to the British flag, be complied with by us, he adviſed Mr Anſon to put into the harbour of Typa, about ſix miles from Macao, where he might careen his ſhip without diſturbance ; and actually ſent us a pilot to conduct us ſafe to the intended birth.
- (nautical, intransitive) To tilt on one side.
- Synonym: heel
- (intransitive) To lurch or sway violently from side to side.
- 1909, E. M. Forster, “Chapter I”, in The Machine Stops:
- They were not motionless, but swayed to and fro above her head, thronging out of one sky-light into another, as if the universe and not the air-ship was careening.
- (intransitive) To tilt or lean while in motion. [from late 19th c.]
- (intransitive, chiefly US) To career, to move rapidly straight ahead, to rush carelessly. [from at least early 20th c.]
- (intransitive, chiefly US) To move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way.
- 2008, Philip Roth, Indignation:
- The car in which I had taken Olivia to dinner and then out to the cemetery — a historic vehicle, even a monument of sorts, in the history of fellatio's advent onto the Winesburg campus in the second half of the twentieth century — went careening off to the side and turned end-over-end down Lower Main until it exploded in flames...
- 2016 December 20, Katie Rife, “Passengers strains the considerable charms of Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence”, in The Onion AV Club[2], archived from the original on 23 April 2018:
- He tries for a lot of things, careening wildly from earnest romance to feel-good comedy to hackneyed suspense, all the while leaving it up to the audience to suss out the moral complexity and existential terror underneath the glossy surface.
Usage notes
[edit]The "move rapidly" senses are considered by some, especially in British English, to be an error due to confusion with "career".
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to heave a ship down on one side so as to expose the other
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to tilt on one side
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to sway violently from side to side or lurch
to tilt or lean while in motion
to move rapidly straight ahead
Noun
[edit]careen (plural careens)
- (nautical) The position of a ship laid on one side.
Anagrams
[edit]Spanish
[edit]Verb
[edit]careen
- inflection of carear:
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- English terms borrowed from French
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- English terms derived from Ligurian
- English terms derived from Latin
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- Rhymes:English/iːn
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