trace

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A sign that something or someone has been present.

   There wasn't a trace of evidence to support the claim.

2. 2
   noun

   A very small amount of something.

   There are traces of chocolate around your lips.

3. 3
   verb

   To find out where something came from or what happened by following the evidence.

   Police traced the call back to a house in the city.

4. 4
   verb

   To go back over something step by step.

   We retraced the route we took last summer.

From Middle English tracen, from Old French tracer, trasser (“to delineate, score, trace", also, "to follow, pursue”), probably a conflation of Vulgar Latin *tractiō (“to delineate, score, trace”), from Latin trahere (“to draw”); and Old French traquer (“to chase, hunt, pursue”), from trac (“a track, trace”), from Middle Dutch treck, treke (“a drawing, draft, delineation, feature, expedition”). More at track.

Topics