trace

1. verb

1)

police hope to trace the owner of the vehicle

Syn:

track down, find, discover, detect, unearth, turn up, hunt down, ferret out

2)

she traced a pattern in the sand with her toe

Syn:

draw, outline, mark, sketch

3)

the analysis traces the origins of cowboy poetry

Syn:

outline, map out, follow, sketch out, delineate, depict, show, indicate

2. noun

1)

no trace had been found of the runaways

Syn:

vestige, sign, mark, indication, evidence, clue; trail, tracks, marks, prints, footprints, spoor; remains, remnant, relic

2)

a trace of bitterness crept into her voice

Syn:

bit, touch, hint, suggestion, suspicion, shadow, whiff; drop, dash, tinge, speck, shred, iota; smidgen, tad

••

trace, remnant, track, trail, vestige

You can follow the track of a deer in the snow, the trace of a sleigh, or the trail of someone who has just cut down a Christmas tree and is dragging it back to the car. A track is a line or a series of marks left by the passage of something or someone; it often refers specifically to a line of footprints or a path worn into the ground by the feet (to follow the track of a grizzly bear). Trace may refer to a line or a rut made by someone or something that has been present or passed by; it may also refer to a mark serving as evidence that something has happened or been there (traces of mud throughout the house; the telephoto shots have a trace of a camera shake). Trail may refer to the track created by the passage of animals or people, or to the mark or marks left by something being dragged along a surface (they followed the trail of the injured dog). Vestige and remnant come closer in meaning to trace, as they refer to what remains after something has passed away. A vestige is always slight when compared to what it recalls (the last vestiges of a great civilization), while a remnant is a fragment or scrap of something (all that remained of the historic tapestry after the fire was a few scorched remnants).