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Trace   /treɪs/   Listen
noun
Trace  n.  
1.
One of two straps, chains, or ropes of a harness, extending from the collar or breastplate to a whiffletree attached to a vehicle or thing to be drawn; a tug.
2.
(Mech.) A connecting bar or rod, pivoted at each end to the end of another piece, for transmitting motion, esp. from one plane to another; specif., such a piece in an organ-stop action to transmit motion from the trundle to the lever actuating the stop slider.


Trace  n.  
1.
A mark left by anything passing; a track; a path; a course; a footprint; a vestige; as, the trace of a carriage or sled; the trace of a deer; a sinuous trace.
2.
(Chem. & Min.) A very small quantity of an element or compound in a given substance, especially when so small that the amount is not quantitatively determined in an analysis; hence, in stating an analysis, often contracted to tr.
3.
A mark, impression, or visible appearance of anything left when the thing itself no longer exists; remains; token; vestige. "The shady empire shall retain no trace Of war or blood, but in the sylvan chase."
4.
(Descriptive Geom. & Persp.) The intersection of a plane of projection, or an original plane, with a coordinate plane.
5.
(Fort.) The ground plan of a work or works.


verb
Trace  v. t.  (past & past part. traced; pres. part. tracing)  
1.
To mark out; to draw or delineate with marks; especially, to copy, as a drawing or engraving, by following the lines and marking them on a sheet superimposed, through which they appear; as, to trace a figure or an outline; a traced drawing. "Some faintly traced features or outline of the mother and the child, slowly lading into the twilight of the woods."
2.
To follow by some mark that has been left by a person or thing which has preceded; to follow by footsteps, tracks, or tokens. "You may trace the deluge quite round the globe." "I feel thy power... to trace the ways Of highest agents."
3.
Hence, to follow the trace or track of. "How all the way the prince on footpace traced."
4.
To copy; to imitate. "That servile path thou nobly dost decline, Of tracing word, and line by line."
5.
To walk over; to pass through; to traverse. "We do tracethis alley up and down."


Trace  v. i.  To walk; to go; to travel. (Obs.) "Not wont on foot with heavy arms to trace."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Trace" Quotes from Famous Books



... where,—instead of the meter of Shakspeare, whose secret is, that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will best bring out the rhythm,—here the lines are constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakable traits of Shakspeare's hand, and some passages, as the account of the coronation,[546] are like autographs. What is odd, the compliment to Queen Elizabeth[547] ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to realize that Amalfi was once a flourishing city of Oriental trade. One looks in vain for any trace of ruin or shrine that still suggests the ancient splendors of activity. The strata of the past, so visible in other mediaeval cities, are not apparent here. The great cathedral is a most interesting study in the art ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... till I unhitch," said Billy Jack, with the feeling that courtesy to the minister's son demanded this attention. But Hughie, rejecting this proposition with scorn, pushed Thomas aside and set himself to unhitch the S-hook on the outside trace of the nigh bay. It was one of Hughie's grievances, and a very sore point with him, that his father's people would insist on treating him in the privileged manner they thought proper to his father's son, and his chief ambition was to stand upon his own legs and to fare like other boys. So he ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... contempt for civilised life, prevented him from framing a theory of any practical utility. Indeed, the disastrous attempt of the Jacobins to apply his principles proved how valueless and impracticable most of his doctrines were. He never attempted to trace social and political evils to their causes, in order to suggest suitable modifications of existing conditions. He could not see how impossible it was to sweep away all institutions and impose a wholly new social order irrespective of the natures, faculties, and desires of those whom he wished to ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... fighting customs of the natives, and was consequently quite without a guide of any kind beyond my own reason. I felt convinced that the blacks had fully realised the advantage to them of our fagged condition during the past day, and had little doubt but that they were acute enough to trace it to its correct source; the question then was, would they allow us to pass an undisturbed night and thus sacrifice an important advantage? I greatly doubted it. But they might allow a few hours' cessation of hostilities ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood


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