careen

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careen

  • /kəˈɹiːn/

Rhymes with -iːn

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Latin carīna

Italian carenabor.

French carènebor.

English careen

First attested in the late 16th century, from French carène (“keel”), from Italian carena, from Latin carīna (“keel of a ship”). Doublet of carene and carina.

verb careens · careening · careened

  1. 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. 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
  2. intransitive To tilt on one side.
  3. intransitive To lurch or sway violently from side to side. 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.
  4. intransitive To tilt or lean while in motion.
  5. US, intransitive To career, to move rapidly straight ahead, to rush carelessly.
  6. US, intransitive To move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way. 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 Mai

noun careens

  1. The position of a ship laid on one side.

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