trace
English · Español · Français · Italiano · Português · Thesaurus
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
trace¹
- /tɹeɪs/
- [tʃɹeɪs] sometimes
Rhymes with -eɪs
Where it comes from
From Middle English trace, traas, from Old French trace (“an outline, track, trace”), from the verb (see below).
noun traces
- An act of tracing. Your cell phone company can put a trace on your line.
- An enquiry sent out for a missing article, such as a letter or an express package.
- A mark left as a sign of passage of a person or animal. Those are the times you write it off, experience / Walk away, and leave no trace / Cause that night, love had no face
-
A very small amount, often residual, of some substance or material.
There are traces of chocolate around your lips.
Similar: show, ace, atom, thought, atomy, aught, bissel, continental, bit, crumb, glimpse, dab
-
A small amount of rain, not enough to be measured.
Similar: show, ace, atom, thought, atomy, aught, bissel, continental, bit, crumb, glimpse, dab
- A current-carrying conductive pathway on a printed circuit board.
- An informal road or prominent path in an arid area.
- 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.
- A connecting bar or rod, pivoted at each end to the end of another piece, for transmitting motion, especially from one plane to another; specifically, such a piece in an organ stop action to transmit motion from the trundle to the lever actuating the stop slider.
- The ground plan of a work or works.
- The intersection of a plane of projection, or an original plane, with a coordinate plane.
- The sum of the diagonal elements of a square matrix.
- An empty category occupying a position in the syntactic structure from which something has been moved, used to explain constructions such as wh-movement and the passive. [S]upposing the NP has raised in (18), the potential bindees are the clitic and the trace of the focalized NP, neither of which qualifies as a syntactic variable.
- A sequence of instructions, including branches but not loops, that is executed for some input data.
- A signifier approximated in the absence of stable signified.
adjective more trace · most trace · tracest
- Extremely small or insignificant (of an amount or quantity). Vena contracta is defined as the narrowest portion of the regurgitant jet, seen at its origin. In all of the cases, it was assumed that the MR severity was downgraded by general anesthesia because of reduced afterload conditions. In cases where MR was determined to be trace, mild, or moderate, the a
trace²
- /tɹeɪs/
- [tʃɹeɪs] sometimes
Rhymes with -eɪs
Where it comes from
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.
verb traces · tracing · traced
- To follow the trail of. I feel thy power […] to trace the ways / Of highest agents.
- To follow the history of. 1684-1690, Thomas Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth You may trace the deluge quite round the globe.
- To draw or sketch lightly or with care. He carefully traced the outlines of the old building before him.
- To copy onto a sheet of paper superimposed over the original, by drawing over its lines.
- To copy; to imitate. That servile path thou nobly dost decline, / Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
- To walk; to go; to travel. Not wont on foote with heavy armes to trace.
- To walk over; to pass through; to traverse. We do trace this alley up and down.
- To follow the execution of the program by making it to stop after every instruction, or by making it print a message after every step.
Trace³
proper noun
- A short form of the female given name Tracy or Tracey.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: follow, retrace, touch, delineate, outline, describe, draw, hint, suggestion, vestige, shadow, line, ghost, hunt, hound, tracking
Translations
Every language
noun very small amount
| Español | cantidad ínfima, cuantía mínima, traza, indicio |
|---|---|
| 中文 | 少量 shǎoliàng, 少許 /少许 shǎoxǔ, 微量 wēiliàng |
| Français | traces |
| Deutsch | Spur |
noun act of tracing
| Español | calcar |
|---|---|
| Deutsch | aufzeichnen, aufspüren, nachspüren, nachziehen, verfolgen |
| Русский | слежка sležka, прослушка prosluška |
noun mark left as a sign of passage
| Español | huella, rastro, traza |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 흔적 heunjeok, 자국 jaguk |
| 日本語 | 跡 ato, 痕跡 konseki |
| 中文 | 痕跡 /痕迹 hénjì |
| हिन्दी | चिह्न cihna |
| Português | vestígio, rastro, rasto |
| Français | trace |
| Deutsch | Spur |
| Italiano | orma |
| Ελληνικά | ίχνος íchnos |
| Română | urmă |
| Русский | след sled |
| Tiếng Việt | dấu, vết |
| العربية | أَثَر ʔaṯar |
noun (electronics) electric current-carrying conductive pathway
| Deutsch | Leiterbahn |
|---|---|
| Română | cablaj imprimat |
| العربية | لَوْحَة دَارَات مَطْبُوعَة lawḥat dārāt maṭbūʕa |
noun 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
| Español | tirante |
|---|---|
| Français | trait |
| Deutsch | Strang |
| Italiano | tirella, tirante |
noun linear algebra: sum of the diagonal elements of a square matrix
| Español | traza |
|---|---|
| Português | traço |
| Français | trace |
| Deutsch | Spur |
| Русский | след sled |
verb to follow the history of
| Español | remontarse |
|---|
Talk about this word "trace." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/trace. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. trace. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/trace "trace." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/trace.Cite this
@misc{trace_2026,
title = {trace},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/trace},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
