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carraria

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word carraria

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
804
Ultimate origin
Latin carrus

Forms

carrāria f (genitive carrāriae); first declension[1] Spellings include charraria, carreria and carrera.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is from Medieval Latin carrārius (“of carts”) used as a noun, short for ⟨via carrāria⟩ “cart road”.[1][2][3] The adjective comes from carrus (“wagon, cart”).[2][4]

It is the source of Catalan carrera.[3] English career goes back, through French carrière and Old Provençal or Italian, to the same Latin phrase.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Wiktionary dates it from 804, as a road wide enough for carts.[1]

Semantic evolution

It meant first a road for carts, and was common in charters as the boundary of a property: two charters from Vic of 951 and 957 name carrera as the edge of a field.[2][3] From the cart itself it came to mean the service of carting owed to a lord, and a cartload.[2][4][6] Du Cange adds a cask or measure of wine.[6][4]

In the Romance languages the descendants also came to mean a path or footpath.[1]

Timeline

  • 804 – First recorded, of a road for carts.[1]
  • 888–898 – Diplomas use it.[4]
  • 951 – A charter from Vic names a carrera as a boundary.[3]
  • 1035 – A charter of Saint-Victor of Marseille has via carraria.[6]
  • 1530s – English has career, from French.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (Medieval Latin) A road for carts, a cartway.[2][3][1]
  2. (Medieval Latin) cartage service owed to a lord.[2][4]
  3. (Medieval Latin) A cartload.[2][6][4]
  4. (Medieval Latin) A wine cask, a measure of wine.[6][4]

Usage notes

Niermeyer has a second carraria, a spelling of quadraria “quarry”, from quadrus.[2] Du Cange takes Augustine's sermon, where a man bought a house in Carraria for its stones, in this sense,[6] while the TLL takes the word there as the name of a place, apparently in Africa.[7] As a proper name, Carrāria is the Tuscan town of Carrara.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  3. ^ a b c d e f Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis Cataloniae (1960–; online ed. 2025), Barcelona: CSIC / Institució Milà i Fontanals, gmlc.imf.csic.es
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
  7. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Cite this entry

“Carraria.” Etymologically, 24 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/carraria. Accessed 24 Oct. 2026.

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