Karriere

Forms

Karriere f (genitive Karriere, plural Karrieren)^[1]

Etymology

In its modern sense it is borrowed from French carrière (“racecourse; course of life, career”), borrowed in the 18th century.^[2][3][4] Kluge derives the French word from Italian carriera (“road”), Pfeifer and Duden rather from Old Occitan carriera (“road, street”), and all go back to Late Latin *carrāria (“(road) for carts”), compare Medieval Latin via carraria.^[2][3][4] Its base is Latin carrus (“cart, wagon”), a word of Gaulish origin, which also gave Karre.^[4][5]

Riders had already taken the Italian word in the 16th century for the fastest gallop of a horse; the French word joined it in the 18th century with the sense “course, career”.^[6][7][8] The same French noun gave English career, Dutch carrière and Swedish karriär.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The ZDL word history's first record is in a 1573 Augsburg translation of Grisone's riding manual, for a very fast gait of the horse; the DFWB quotes eine schnelle Carriera from a 1584 book on horsemanship.^[6][7] The early forms were Carrera and Carriera.^[7]

Semantic evolution

At the end of the 17th century the sense “racecourse, course” appeared beside the riding term.^[6] In the second half of the 18th century, probably under French influence, the word came to mean a successful professional career, first in set careers such as the civil service and since the middle of the 19th century in more open professions too.^[6][7] Paul dates the sense “course of life, of offices” from French to 1633.^[8] The galloping sense lived on in literature: Schiller's Kabale und Liebe has in voller Karriere nach Haus “home at full gallop”.^[8]

Fontane used the disparaging Karrieremacher, and Karrierist followed; recently the word is also used for a decline, as in Drogenkarriere.^[8] Hungarian borrowed karrier in 1854, as “racecourse”.^[9]

Timeline

• 1573 – First record, for the fastest gait of a horse.^[6]
• 1584 – eine schnelle Carriera in a riding manual.^[7]
• 1633 – Paul's first date for the sense “course of life”.^[8]
• late 17th century – The sense “racecourse, course”.^[6]
• 1769 – The DFWB's first record of the sense “career” from French.^[7]
• mid-19th century – The sense spreads from fixed careers to the professions in general.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A successful rise in one's profession;^[10][1] Karriere machen is to rise quickly: Er machte als Ingenieur rasch Karriere.^[10][1]
2. A career, a professional path: eine Karriere als Sängerin.^[10][1]
3. (riding) The fastest gallop of a horse.^[10][1][5]

Word family

• Karrierist
• Karrieremacher

Related words

• Karre
• Karren
• English career

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 476
3. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 433
5. ^ a b Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
6. ^ a b c d e f g Wortgeschichte digital (2020–), Zentrum für digitale Lexikographie der deutschen Sprache (ZDL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, zdl.org/wb/wortgeschichten
7. ^ a b c d e f Schulz, Hans; Basler, Otto, et al. (1913–1988), Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch, 7 vols., Strasbourg / Berlin: Trübner / De Gruyter; 2nd ed., ed. Gerhard Strauß et al. (1995–), Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; via OWID, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache
8. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
9. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
10. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag