carrera

Forms

carrera f (plural carreras)^[1] Medieval texts also write carera and karrera, and charters have the Latin forms carreram and carreria.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin carrāria (“road for carts”), short for via carrāria (“cart road”); the DLE and the DCECH write it as Vulgar Latin *carraria.^[1][3][4][5] It is the feminine of the adjective carrārius (“of carts”), from carrus (“wagon”).^[4][1] Lanchetas traces the sound changes as ⟨carraria⟩ > ⟨carraira⟩ > ⟨carreira⟩ > ⟨carrera⟩.^[6]

The word survives in all the Romance languages, from Romanian cărare “path” to Portuguese carreira; Galician carreira and Catalan carrera are the same word, and so is Old French charriere “cart road”.^[4][7][8] According to the DCECH, Italian carriera “course of a voyage” (1583), later “profession”, probably came from Spanish; the DHLF derives it rather from Old Occitan.^[4][8] French carrière (1534) was borrowed from the Italian word, and the English word career is a cognate.^[8][1]

The Latin noun was a Gallic word.^[9] Wiktionary derives it from Gaulish *karros, from *karros (“wagon”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- (“to run”), and notes that it is a doublet of currus (“chariot”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds carrera in a charter of 929, and already in a Valpuesta document of 804 that survives in a copy of the second half of the 11th century.^[4][5][2] The first sense was “road”: Menéndez Pidal quotes karraria que discurrit per Liuana “the road that runs through Liuana” from a Sahagún charter of 997.^[10] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) it means “road, journey”: the Cid gives Álvar Fáñez a hundred men por servirle en la carrera “to serve him on the way”.^[11][10]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used carrera for a road, a street and a journey, and figuratively for a course of action or a means of doing something, with phrases like entrar en carrera “to set out”.^[12][13] Alfonso X's prose also has it for the course of the stars and for a profession.^[13] VOX describes the shift as going from the place one passed along to the act of passing or running along it.^[14] The sense “run, rapid course” is recorded at the end of the 15th century, in Nebrija's Carrera o corrida and in the Amadís.^[15][16] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as the place where horses race, said that in parts of Spain it still meant “road”, and noted Catalan carrer “street”.^[17]

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1729) put the act of running first and wrongly derived the word from Latin currere; the Academy's 1884 edition gave “from carro”.^[18][19] The professional sense, already found in Alfonso X, now also covers the course of studies leading to a degree.^[13][3] In the Americas carrera is a run in baseball, and in Colombia a north–south avenue, opposed to a calle.^[20][1]

Timeline

• 804 – a Valpuesta document known from an 11th-century copy.^[4][2]
• 929 – first record in a charter.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy): a journey or road.^[11][10]
• 1259 – Alfonso X's Libro de las cruzes: the course of the stars.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: Carrera o corrida, Latin cursus.^[16]
• 1534 – French carrière, from Italian carriera.^[8]
• 1535 – first record in the Americas, in Lima.^[21]
• 1583 – Italian carriera, probably from Spanish.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as a racecourse for horses.^[17]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as the act of running.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from carro.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of running: Llegó a la estación en una carrera.^[3][1]
2. A race: a speed contest between runners, drivers or riders.^[3][1]
3. A race between trained animals, such as greyhounds.^[3]
4. The finishing line of a race.^[3]
5. A trip made by a taxi or other hired vehicle; its fare.^[3][1]
6. A course of studies, usually at university, that qualifies for a profession: Está en el último año de la carrera.^[3][1]
7. A profession that requires training and often a competitive examination: Es juez de carrera.^[3]
8. A career: a notable professional course.^[3][1]
9. The practice of a profession over the years.^[3]
10. (rare) By antonomasia, the diplomatic service.^[3]
11. A place set aside for running.^[3]
12. The course of the stars.^[3]
13. A highway or cart road; a street that was once a road.^[3]
14. (baseball, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Colombia, Venezuela) A run.^[20][22][1]
15. (Colombia) An avenue running north–south, as opposed to a calle.^[20][1]
16. A ladder in a stocking or other knitted fabric.^[14][1]

Word family

• carrerilla
• carrerista

Related words

• carro
• carreta
• carretera
• Latin carrus
• Portuguese carreira
• English career

Usage notes

Set phrases include a la carrera “in a rush”, hacer carrera “to get on in life” and carrera de baquetas, once a military punishment of running between two rows of soldiers who flogged the offender, now a series of vexations.^[3][1][23] Carrera is also a Spanish surname.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. carrera
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. carrera
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 895
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. carro
6. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 215
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. carrera
8. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. carrière
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. carrus
10. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 123
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. carrera
12. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 101
13. ^ a b c d Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. carrera
14. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. carrera
15. ^ Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 635
16. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 311
17. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 446
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 192
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 216
20. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. carrera
21. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. carrera
22. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. carrera
23. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 114