# trace
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /tɹeɪs/, [tʃɹeɪs]
* Audio (US):(file)
* Audio (Southern England):(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)
* 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.
    Synonyms: track, trail
** 1983, Ashford & Simpson (lyrics and music), “Experience (Love Had No Face)”, in High-Rise (album):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.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:modicum
    There are traces of chocolate around your lips.
    All of our chocolates may contain traces of nuts.
** 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC: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.
** 2014 October 27, Taylor Swift, Imogen Heap, “Clean (Taylor's Version)”, in 1989 (Taylor's Version)‎, performed by Taylor Swift, published 2023 October 27:And by mornin' Gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean
* (electronics) 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.
* (engineering) 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.
* (fortification) The ground plan of a work or works.
* (geometry) The intersection of a plane of projection, or an original plane, with a coordinate plane.
* (mathematics) The sum of the diagonal elements of a square matrix.
* (grammar) 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.
** 1999, Georges Rebuschi, Laurice Tuller, The Grammar of Focus, page 290:[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.
* (programming) A sequence of instructions, including branches but not loops, that is executed for some input data.

##### Derived terms

* contact trace
* contact-trace
* downtrace, uptrace
* fault trace
* foliar trace
* leaf trace
* leave no trace
* stack trace
* time trace
* trace element
* trace fossil
* trace horse
* trace italienne
* trace scheduling
* trap and trace
* without trace, without a trace

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### Adjective

trace (comparative more trace, superlative most trace or tracest)
* Extremely small or insignificant (of an amount or quantity).
** 2005, Schroder JN, Williams ML, Hata JA, Muhlbaier LH, Swaminathan M, Mathew JP, Glower DD, O'Connor CM, Smith PK, Milano CA, Impact of Mitral Valve Regurgitation Evaluated by Intraoperative Transesophageal Echocardiography on Long-Term Outcomes After Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting: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 afterload was manipulated by bolus injections of phenylephrine to approximate the preanesthesia, awake blood pressure. The final MR grade was assigned after this maneuver was completed. If conflicting results were observed for different criteria, the reviewing anesthesiologist made a judgment as to the final grade of MR.
** 2024, Wafiq Hibi, Using The (4mat) Model in Teaching The Triangles Similarity Unit For The Ninth Grade:Through the above, it is clear that the students of the experimental group who studied the unit of similarity of triangles according to the model (4mat) have outperformed the students of the control group who studied the same unit in the traditional way in the results of the systemic thinking measurement. It was also found that the students of the experimental group have been developing their geometric tendencies more than the students of the control group, and this is due to the use of the (4mat) model. It provided the opportunity for students to overcome many difficulties by giving them the opportunity to discover data for themselves, because it allowed them to recognize similar triangles through their own thinking patterns and transition as the information discovered remains more trace than the information that is taught to students in the traditional way.
** 2025, Aoun, Joseph, The Status of Movement Rules:As indicated in Chomsky (1982), the empty element in (26a) has an antecedent with an independent 0-role and is therefore PRO rather than trace. Subjacency is violated, but nevertheless PRO and its antecedent can be coindexed, as is generally possible for anaphors, apart from trace (in (26c), the coindexing of they and each other violates subjacency). In (26b), the antecedent of the empty element is in a non-0-position, so the empty element is trace. Subjacency is violated as in (26a), but in this case, the sentence is ungrammatical.⁹ Thus subjacency appears to be a property of the rule Move α, not of other indexing mechanisms. If this conclusion is correct, then clearly we will have to distinguish between the indexing mechanism at work in (25a) or (26b) -- i.e. Move α -- and the one at work in (25b-c) or (26a,c).

### Etymology 2

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

trace (third-person singular simple present traces, present participle tracing, simple past and past participle traced)
* (transitive) To follow the trail of.
** 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:I feel thy power […] to trace the ways / Of highest agents.
** c. 1792, William Cowper, On a Similar Occasion for the Year 1792:Happy the mortal, who has traced effects To their first cause
* To follow the history of.
** 1684-1690, Thomas Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth
    You may trace the deluge quite round the globe.
** 2011 July 19, Ella Davies, “Sticks insects survive one million years without sex”, in BBC‎:They traced the ancient lineages of two species to reveal the insects' lengthy history of asexual reproduction.
* (transitive) To draw or sketch lightly or with care.
    He carefully traced the outlines of the old building before him.
* (transitive) To copy onto a sheet of paper superimposed over the original, by drawing over its lines.
* (transitive, obsolete) To copy; to imitate.
** 1647, John Denham, To Sir Richard Fanshaw:That servile path thou nobly dost decline, / Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
* (intransitive, obsolete) To walk; to go; to travel.
** 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 29:Not wont on foote with heavy armes to trace.
* (transitive, obsolete) To walk over; to pass through; to traverse.
** 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:We do trace this alley up and down.
* (computing, transitive) 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.

##### Related terms

* test and trace
* tracing
* track and trace
* trace down

##### Translations
### Anagrams

* Carte, reäct, acter, Certa, carte, crate, cater, caret, react, Cater, creat, recta

## French
### Etymology

From the verb tracer.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /tʁas/
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -as

### Noun

trace f (plural traces)
* trace
** 1864, Jules Verne, Voyage au centre de la Terre, sourced from :Mais non, Axel, nous retrouverions au moins nos propres traces, et je ne vois rien...No, Axel, we should at least find our own traces and I see nothing--
* track
* (mathematics) trace

#### Derived terms

* trace de freinage

### Verb

trace
* inflection of tracer:
** first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
** second-person singular imperative

### Further reading

* “trace”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

### Anagrams

* caret, carte, créât, écart, terça

## Galician
### Verb

trace
* inflection of trazar:
** first/third-person singular present subjunctive
** third-person singular imperative

## Italian
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈtra.t͡ʃe/
* Rhymes: -atʃe
* Hyphenation: trà‧ce

### Etymology 1

From Latin thrācem, from Ancient Greek Θρᾷξ (Thrâix).

#### Adjective

trace (plural traci)
* (literary) Thracian (of, from or relating to Thrace)

#### Noun

trace m or f by sense (plural traci)
* (historical) Thracian (native or inhabitant of Thrace)
    Synonym: tracio

#### Noun

trace m (uncountable)
* the Thracian language

##### Related terms

* tracio
* Tracia

### Etymology 2

From Latin thraecem, from Ancient Greek Θρᾷξ (Thrâix).

#### Noun

trace m (plural traci)
* (historical, Ancient Rome) a gladiator bearing Thracian equipment

### Anagrams

* -crate, Creta, carte, certa, cetra, creta, tacer

## Jamaican Creole
### Noun

trace
* Idle talk; bullshit.
** 2011 June, “Big Bad and Brave (Duh Weh Yuh Wah Fi Duh)”‎performed by Vybz Kartel:Mi big bad and brave bwoy. Duh weh yuh wah fi duh. Yuh sey a your place. Duh weh yuh wah fi duh. And yuh nuh watch face. Duh weh yuh wah fi duh. It just trace yuh a trace.I'm big, bad and brave, boy. Do whatever you want to do to me. You say to meet you at your place to fight. Do whatever you want to do to me. Any you don't care about my reputation. Do whatever you want to do to me. It's just bullshit that you're chatting.

### Verb

trace
* To talk or chat idly; to bullshit.
** 2007 January 1, “Ay Ya Ay Ya” (track 14), in Riddim Driven: Shadowz(2008)‎, performed by Blak Rino:The war him trace. Man haffi run if it a squeeze and press, yeah.He talks idly about war but he has to run if I squeeze and press the trigger of my gun.
** 2011 June, “Big Bad and Brave (Duh Weh Yuh Wah Fi Duh)”‎performed by Vybz Kartel:Mi big bad and brave bwoy. Duh weh yuh wah fi duh. Yuh sey a your place. Duh weh yuh wah fi duh. And yuh nuh watch face. Duh weh yuh wah fi duh. It just trace yuh a trace.I'm big, bad and brave, boy. Do whatever you want to do to me. You say to meet you at your place to fight. Do whatever you want to do to me. Any you don't care about my reputation. Do whatever you want to do to me. It's just bullshit that you're chatting.

## Middle English
### Etymology 1

From Old French trace, from tracer, tracier.

#### Alternative forms

* traas, trase

#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈtraːs(ə)/

#### Noun

trace (plural traces) (mostly Late ME)
* A trail, track or road; a pathway or route:
** An track that isn't demarcated; an informal pathway.
** A trace; a trail of evidence left of something's presence.
* One's lifepath or decisions; one's chosen actions.
* Stepping or movement of feet, especially during dancing.
* (rare, heraldry) A straight mark.

##### Derived terms

* tracen
* tracyng

##### Descendants

* English: trace
* Scots: trace

##### References

* “trāce, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-09-18.

### Etymology 2
#### Verb

trace
* Alternative form of tracen

## Old French
### Etymology

From the verb tracier, tracer.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈtɾat͡sə/

### Noun

trace oblique singular, f (oblique plural traces, nominative singular trace, nominative plural traces)
* trace (markings showing where one has been)

#### Descendants

* French: trace
* → Middle English: trace, traas, trase
** English: trace
** Scots: trace

## Portuguese
### Verb

trace
* inflection of traçar:
** first/third-person singular present subjunctive
** third-person singular imperative

## Spanish
### Verb

trace
* inflection of trazar:
** first/third-person singular present subjunctive
** third-person singular imperative