career (English)

Where does "career" come from?

The word 'career' traces its origins back to the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱers-, meaning 'to run.' This evolved into the Latin 'carrus,' a term for a wheeled vehicle, which eventually moved into Late Latin as 'carrāria' to describe a path for carts. By way of Old Occitan and Middle French, the term evolved from the 'road' or 'racecourse' traveled by a vehicle into the modern English sense of a person's life-long path of work.

Full etymology tree

career (English), 'Doing something professionally, for a living (generally said of something that is not a commonplace job, e.g. criminal activity).'
- inherited carrière (French), 'racecourse'
  - borrowed carriera (Italian), 'career'
    - inherited carrāria (Latin), 'a wide road for vehicles; a path for carts ; the descendants have the meaning ”path, footpath”'
      - contraction via carrāria (Late Latin)
      - derived carrus (Latin), 'a wagon, a two-wheeled baggage cart'
        borrowed *karros (Gaulish), 'wagon'
        inherited *karros (Proto-Celtic), 'wagon'
        derived *ḱers- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to run'
  - borrowed carreira (Old Occitan)
    - inherited carrāria (Latin), 'a wide road for vehicles; a path for carts ; the descendants have the meaning ”path, footpath”'
      - contraction via carrāria (Late Latin)
      - derived carrus (Latin), 'a wagon, a two-wheeled baggage cart'
        borrowed *karros (Gaulish), 'wagon'
        inherited *karros (Proto-Celtic), 'wagon'
        derived *ḱers- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to run'

Direct ancestors

Updated July 2026

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris