TRACE

I. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from ~r to ~ Date: 14th century a course or path that one follows, 2. a mark or line left by something that has passed, a path, trail, or road made by the passage of animals, people, or vehicles, 3. a sign or evidence of some past thing ; vestige , engram , something (as a line) ~d or drawn: as, the marking made by a recording instrument (as a seismograph or kymograph), the ground plan of a military installation or position either on a map or on the ground, 5. the intersection of a line or plane with a plane, the usually bright line or spot that moves across the screen of a cathode-ray tube, 6. a minute and often barely detectable amount or indication , an amount of a chemical constituent not always quantitatively determinable because of minuteness, ~less adjective Synonyms: see: ~ II. verb (~d; tracing) Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French ~r, from Vulgar Latin *tractiare to drag, from Latin tractus, past participle of trahere to pull Date: 14th century transitive verb 1. delineate , sketch , to form (as letters or figures) carefully or painstakingly, to copy (as a drawing) by following the lines or letters as seen through a transparent superimposed sheet, to impress or imprint (as a design or pattern) with a ~r, to record a tracing of in the form of a curved, wavy, or broken line , to adorn with linear ornamentation (as ~ry or chasing), to travel over ; traverse , 3. to follow the footprints, track, or trail of, to follow or study out in detail or step by step , to discover by going backward over the evidence step by step , to discover signs, evidence, or remains of, to lay out the ~ of (a military installation), intransitive verb to make one's way, to be ~able historically, ~ability noun ~able adjective III. noun see: trait Date: 14th century either of two straps, chains, or lines of a harness for attaching a draft animal to something (as a vehicle) to be drawn, leader 1e(2), one or more vascular bundles supplying a leaf or twig