v., -reened, -reen·ing, -reens. v.intr.
- To lurch or swerve while in motion.
- To rush headlong or carelessly; career: "He careened through foreign territories on a desperate kind of blitz" (Anne Tyler).
- Nautical.
- To lean to one side, as a ship sailing in the wind.
- To turn a ship on its side for cleaning, caulking, or repairing.
- To cause (a ship) to lean to one side; tilt.
- To lean (a ship) on one side for cleaning, caulking, or repairing.
- To clean, caulk, or repair (a ship in this position).
- The act or process of careening a ship.
- The position of a careened ship.
[From French (en) carène, (on) the keel, from Old French carene, from Old Italian carena, from Latin carīna.]
careener ca·reen'er n.USAGE NOTE The implication of rapidity that most often accompanies the use of careen as a verb of motion may have arisen naturally through the extension of the nautical sense of the verb to apply to the motion of automobiles, which generally careen, that is, lurch or tip over, only when driven at high speed. There is thus no reason to conclude that this use of the verb is the result of a confusion of careen with career, "to rush." Whatever the origin of this use, however, it is by now so well established that it would be pedantic to object to it.
