Careen

careen







Y

D



–verb (used without object) 

1. (of a vehicle) to lean, sway, or tip to one side while in motion: The car careened around the corner. 

2. (of a ship) to heel over or list.

3. career (def. 7). 

4. South Midland U.S. to lean or bend away from the vertical position: The barn was careening a little.  



–verb (used with object) Nautical. 

5. to cause (a ship) to lie over on a side, as for repairs or cleaning; heave down.

6. to clean or repair (a ship lying on its side for the purpose).

7. to cause (a ship) to heel over or list, as by the force of a beam wind. 



–noun 

8. a careening.

9. Nautical. the position of a careened ship. 





C



careen, career (vv.) 

 

To careen a ship is “to beach it for repairs in such a way that it will lean far over onto the curve of its bottom and side”; a generalized sense then, for ship or other vehicle, is “to tip or tilt to one side.” 



A figurative sense of careen is “to lurch and tip from side to side, as though out of control.”



To career is “to race madly, at full speed, and possibly out of control.” This verb comes from the French noun for “a race course, especially a carriageway so used.” 



Both terms are Standard when applied to persons or vehicles proceeding rapidly and erratically: The wagon careened [careered] wildly down the hill.





　

"Damage," like "Last Tango in Paris" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," is one of those rare movies that is about sexuality, not sex; about the tension between people, not "relationships"; 



about how physical love is meaningless without a psychic engine behind it. 



Stephen and Anna are wrong to do what they do in "Damage," but they cannot help themselves. We know they are careening toward disaster. We cannot look away. 





dirigible

dinghy

keel 

prow & stern

hull 

davit mast lurch



tack & tact

Joe hammered a [tack] into the wall to hang a picture.

The sailing ship was [tacking].

A [diplomat] must have [tact].

maxim

rudder

His [ideas] provided a rudder for the new company.

but this [rudde]rless adaptation never gets a [firm] grip on the author's deadpan tone or episodic narrative style.



demurrage

moor

but bewildered Richard is badly [un] moored

rakish

(of a vessel) having an appearance suggesting speed.  

a hat worn at a rakish [angle]. (jaunty)

the goofy but rakishly [charming] Chad Faust. (dissolute)



broadside

[fire] a broadside at the pirates

The [reviewer] leveled a broadside at the novel.

regatta

Von Slonker met her when he came to Edgartown for the regatta.



bier

pier

Hurt, playing a cocky but lazy lawyer named Ned Racine, is strolling on a pier where an exhausted band is listlessly playing.

Inflict