careen

/kəˈɹiːn/

careen verb: to heave a ship down on one side so as to expose the other, in order to clean it of barnacles and weed, or to repair it below the water line.

Verb

careen (third-person singular simple present careens, present participle careening, simple past and past participle careened)

(transitive) To heave a ship down on one side so as to expose the other, in order to clean it of barnacles and weed, or to repair it below the water line.
- However, to avoid ſome inconveniencies relating to port duties, which would have been demanded in the port of Canton, and could not, in honour to the British flag, be complied with by us, he adviſed Mr Anſon to put into the harbour of Typa, about ſix miles from Macao, where he might careen his ſhip...1749 July, “Anſon's voyage of the world”, in The Scots Magazine, volume xi, pages 333-334
(intransitive) To tilt on one side.

Synonyms:

heel
(intransitive) To lurch or sway violently from side to side.
- They were not motionless, but swayed to and fro above her head, thronging out of one sky-light into another, as if the universe and not the air-ship was careening.1909, E. M. Forster, “Chapter I”, in The Machine Stops
(intransitive) To tilt or lean while in motion.
(US, intransitive) To career, to move rapidly straight ahead, to rush carelessly.
(US, intransitive) To move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way.
- The car in which I had taken Olivia to dinner and then out to the cemetery — a historic vehicle, even a monument of sorts, in the history of fellatio's advent onto the Winesburg campus in the second half of the twentieth century — went careening off to the side and turned end-over-end down Lower...2008, Philip Roth, Indignation
- He tries for a lot of things, careening wildly from earnest romance to feel-good comedy to hackneyed suspense, all the while leaving it up to the audience to suss out the moral complexity and existential terror underneath the glossy surface.2016 December 20, Katie Rife, “Passengers strains the considerable charms of Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 23 Apr 2018

Noun

careen (plural careens)

The position of a ship laid on one side.

careen meaning in Bengali and Kannada

careen in Bengali

হেলে যাওয়া, দ্রুতগতিতে এগিয়ে যাওয়া

careen in Kannada

ಮಗುಚು, ಬಗ್ಗು, ಮಾಲು

Examples of careen in a sentence

It is the wreckage of a train that has been careening down the track for years.2020 April 3, Arundhati Roy, “The pandemic is a portal”, in Financial Times, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC:
The country has careened through nearly a century of instability, marred by military coups and spectacular financial collapses epitomized by triple-digit inflation.2026 May 28, Emma Bubola, Ryan Mac, “Why Peter Thiel Is Decamping to the End of the World”, in The New York Times:

All 11 example sentences with careen

Synonyms of careen

heel

Forms of careen

Verb
third-person singular present	careens
present participle	careening
past participle	careened
past	careened
Noun
plural	careens

Origin of careen

First attested in the late 16th century, from French carène (“keel”), from Italian carena, from Latin carīna (“keel of a ship”). Doublet of carene and carina.

Words formed from careen

Words that rhyme with careen

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about careen

What does careen mean?: Careen means to heave a ship down on one side so as to expose the other, in order to clean it of barnacles and weed, or to repair it below the water line.
What is careen in Bengali?: Careen in Bengali is হেলে যাওয়া, দ্রুতগতিতে এগিয়ে যাওয়া. See Careen meaning in Bengali.
How do you use careen in a sentence?: It is the wreckage of a train that has been careening down the track for years.
What part of speech is careen?: Careen can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce careen?: Careen is pronounced /kəˈɹiːn/.
What is the past tense of careen?: The past tense of careen is careened.

Words near careen in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: careen (page history and authors); careen (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); careen (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-careen.ogg.

Cite this entry: “careen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/careen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.