to make a career of
4
3.7
- phrasal verb
:
hacer carrera en
- After finishing college, she decided to make a career of teaching young children.
Examples
-
He also discussed determining what I like to do and how I could make a career of it.
Academic text (2015) -
Did he think he would make a career of it?
Fiction book (2002) -
Have you ever thought of making a career of it?
-
Kind of made a career of that myself.
-
"You and your wife can make a career of it."
-
I hope they make a career of it.
Blog text (16) -
You can make a 'career' of your creative, passionate work; keep doing it!
Blog text (1) -
Folks always asked me why I didn't make a career of singing.
Fiction book (2001) -
Is it something you intend to do long-term and make a career of?
Blog text (26) -
"If you're going to make a career of literary criticism," he said, "I should lend you some books by the great critics of my era."
Fiction book (1998)
How Committed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'make' (to cause or develop into) with 'career' (one's line of work) and the prepositional phrase indicating the field (e.g., 'of teaching'). This is a regular verb+noun+preposition composition found across languages (cf. Spanish 'hacer carrera en', French 'faire carrière dans') and follows expected semantic patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will most likely infer the meaning.
Etymology
Make a career of comes from the simple image of make (to build) and career (a long work path): imagine building a road for your work and following it year after year, so it means 'to choose and follow a job or activity as your main paid work'.