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an occupation or profession, especially one requiring special training, followed as one’s lifework:
He sought a career as a lawyer.
a person’s progress or general course of action through life or through a phase of life, as in some profession or undertaking:
His career as a soldier ended with the armistice.
success in a profession, occupation, etc.
a course, especially a swift one.
speed, especially full speed:
The horse stumbled in full career.
Archaic. a charge at full speed.
to run or move rapidly along; go at full speed.
having or following a career; professional:
a career diplomat.
Contemporary Examples

No one who spent his career at the agency and worked as an intelligence officer for the CIA has been in charge since before Bush.
After Petraeus: Replacing the CIA Director Bruce Riedel November 12, 2012

But she is undaunted and knows exactly where she wants to take her career.
Adepero Oduye, ‘Pariah’s’ Scene Stealer Lorenza Muñoz December 26, 2011

How did the recent New Yorker article change your career, if it is not too early to tell?
The David Eagleman Interview: How I Write Noah Charney May 15, 2012

New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”
Sorry, Dad, I’m Voting for Obama Christopher Buckley October 9, 2008

He has spent, by his own reckoning, almost half his career tracking down and debunking conspiracy theories.
Hugh Aynesworth Has Spent His Career Debunking JFK Conspiracy Theories Malcolm Jones November 21, 2013

Historical Examples

But the stranger shook his head disdainfully, and continued his career.
The Pirates of the Prairies Gustave Aimard

I like him; I should like him even if he were not an Earl—and his name a career.
The Bacillus of Beauty Harriet Stark

However, figure to yourself Corot fully embarked on his career as a painter.
Corot Sidney Allnutt

No, so long as my sister has the career fever, I say law, every time.
The Bacillus of Beauty Harriet Stark

After all, it is often the dreams of the youth which determine the career of the man, he reflected.
Nuala O’Malley H. Bedford-Jones

noun
a path or progress through life or history
a profession or occupation chosen as one’s life’s work
(modifier) having or following a career as specified: a career diplomat
a course or path, esp a swift or headlong one
verb
(intransitive) to move swiftly along; rush in an uncontrolled way
n.

1530s, “a running (usually at full speed), a course” (especially of the sun, etc., across the sky), from Middle French carriere “road, racecourse” (16c.), from Old Provençal or Italian carriera, from Vulgar Latin *(via) cararia “carriage (road), track for wheeled vehicles,” from Latin carrus “chariot” (see car). Sense of “course of a working life” first attested 1803.
v.

1590s, “to charge at a tournament,” from career (n.). The meaning “move rapidly, run at full speed” (1640s) is from the image of a horse “passing a career” on the jousting field, etc. Related: Careered; careering.
see: checkered career