trace

See also: tracé

English

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɹeɪs/, /tʃɹeɪs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪs

Etymology 1

From Middle English trace, traas, from Old French trace (“an outline, track, trace”), from the verb (see below).

Noun

trace (plural traces)

1. An act of tracing.

   Your cell phone company can put a trace on your line.

2. A mark left as a sign of passage of a person or animal.
3. A very small amount.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, The China Governess^[1]:

     The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures.

   All of our chocolates may contain traces of nuts.

4. (electronics) An electric current-carrying conductive pathway on a printed circuit board.
5. An informal road or prominent path in an arid area.
6. One of two straps, chains, or ropes of a harness, extending from the collar or breastplate to a whippletree attached to a vehicle or thing to be drawn; a tug.
7. (fortification) The ground plan of a work or works.
8. The intersection of a plane of projection, or an original plane, with a coordinate plane.
9. (mathematics) The sum of the diagonal elements of a square matrix.

Derived terms

• downtrace, uptrace

Synonyms

• (mark left as a sign of passage of a person or animal): track, trail
• (small amount): see also Wikisaurus:modicum.

Translations

act of tracing

• Dutch: opsporen (nl), nazoeken
• German: aufzeichnen, aufspüren, nachspüren, nachziehen, verfolgen (de)

• Swedish: an anteckna
• Turkish: bulmak (tr), iz sürmek (tr), izlemek (tr), takip etmek (tr)

mark left as a sign of passage

• Arabic: أثر (ar) ('athar)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 痕跡, 痕迹 (zh) (hénjì)

• Czech: stopa (cs) f
• Finnish: jälki (fi)
• French: trace (fr) f
• Friulian: olme f
• Greek: ίχνος (el) n (íchnos)
• Italian: orma (it)

• Japanese: 跡 (ja) (ato)
• Maori: makenu, mōnā, mokenu
• Portuguese: vestígio (pt) m, rastro (pt) m
• Romanian: urmă (ro)
• Russian: след (ru) m (sled)
• Serbo-Croatian: trag m
• Spanish: huella (es) f, rastro (es) m, traza (es) f

very small amount

• Dutch: sporen (nl) n pl

• Finnish: hiven, jäämä

(electronics) electric current-carrying conductive pathway

• Arabic: لوحة دارات مطبوعة (Levha daratu muTaboo'ah)
• German: Leiterplatte (de) f
• Norwegian: kretskort n

• Romanian: cablaj imprimat (ro) n
• Swedish: mönsterkort (sv) n
• Turkish: baskılı devre kartı

informal road or prominent path in an arid area

(mathematics) sum of the diagonal elements of a square matrix

• Finnish: jälki (fi)
• Icelandic: spor (is) n

• Spanish: traza (es) f

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Telugu: ఆనవాలు (aanavaalu)

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Etymology 2

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

Verb

trace (third-person singular simple present traces, present participle tracing, simple past and past participle traced)

1. (transitive) To follow the trail of.
   • Milton

     I feel thy power […] to trace the ways / Of highest agents.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cowper to this entry?)

2. To follow the history of.
   • T. Burnet

     You may trace the deluge quite round the globe.

   • 2011 July 19, Ella Davies, “Sticks insects survive one million years without sex”, BBC:

     They traced the ancient lineages of two species to reveal the insects' lengthy history of asexual reproduction.

3. (transitive) To draw or sketch lightly or with care.

   He carefully traced the outlines of the old building before him.

4. (transitive) To copy onto a sheet of paper superimposed over the original, by drawing over its lines.
5. (transitive, obsolete) To copy; to imitate.
   • Denham

     That servile path thou nobly dost decline, / Of tracing word, and line by line.

6. (intransitive, obsolete) To walk; to go; to travel.
   • Spenser

     Not wont on foot with heavy arms to trace.

7. (transitive, obsolete) To walk over; to pass through; to traverse.
   • Shakespeare

     We do trace this alley up and down.

Translations

to follow the trail of something

• Dutch: opsporen (nl), spoorzoeken

• Finnish: jäljittää (fi)

to draw or sketch

• Portuguese: traçar (pt)

• Spanish: trazar (es)

to copy onto a sheet of transparent paper

• Dutch: overtrekken (nl), calqueren (nl)
• Esperanto: paŭsi
• French: calquer (fr)

• Ido: kalquar (io)
• Spanish: calcar (es)

Related terms

• tracing

Anagrams

• caret
• cater
• crate
• react
• recta

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French

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /tʁas/
• Rhymes: -as

Noun

trace f (plural traces)

1. trace
2. track
3. (mathematics) trace

Verb

trace

1. first-person singular present indicative of tracer
2. third-person singular present indicative of tracer
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of tracer
4. first-person singular present subjunctive of tracer
5. second-person singular imperative of tracer

Anagrams

• carte, créât, écart, terça

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Spanish

Verb

trace

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of trazar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of trazar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of trazar.