know your car____ movement verbs

• to careen is fall to one side
• to career is to rush at full speed
• to carom is to glance and rebound

this is also a secret words wholly unrelated post because none of the car____ verbs are related etymologically and each comes from different sports.

• careening, a nautical term, is from the latin carina meaning the keel of a ship (or “nutshell”).
• careering, a horse racing term, comes from the latin carrus “a wheeled device” —car and carriage are its first cousins. when career first infiltrated english it meant something like “racetrack” though it didn’t take long for this definition to expand metaphorically to something like “the course of one’s profession.”
• caroming, a billiards term, is from the italian carambola “the red billiard ball,” which itself may be from the indian karambal, a fruit said to resemble such a ball.