<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>a surviving mark, sign, or evidence of the former existence, influence, or action of some agent or event; vestige: traces of an advanced civilization among the ruins.</li><li>a barely discernible indication or evidence of some quantity, quality, characteristic, expression, etc.: a trace of anger in his tone.</li><li>Synonyms: touch, taste, suggestion, hint.</li><li>an extremely small amount of some chemical component: a trace of copper in its composition.</li><li>Antonyms: plethora, excess, abundance.</li><li>traces, the series of footprints left by an animal.</li><li>the track left by the passage of a person, animal, or object: the trace of her skates on the ice.</li><li>Synonyms: record, spoor, trail.</li><li>Meteorology: precipitation of less than 0.005 inch (0.127 millimeter).</li><li>a trail or path, especially through wild or open territory, made by the passage of people, animals, or vehicles.</li><li>engram.</li><li>a tracing, drawing, or sketch of something.</li><li>a lightly drawn line, as the record drawn by a self-registering instrument.</li><li>Mathematics: the intersection of two planes, or of a plane and a surface.</li><li>the sum of the elements along the principal diagonal of a square matrix.</li><li>the geometric locus of an equation.</li><li>the visible line or lines produced on the screen of a cathode-ray tube by the deflection of the electron beam.</li><li>Linguistics: (in generative grammar) a construct that is phonologically empty but serves to mark the place in the surface structure of a sentence from which a noun phrase has been moved by a transformational operation.</li><li>Obsolete: a footprint.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb</strong></p><ul><li>(used with object) to follow the footprints, track, or traces of.</li><li>Synonyms: trail, track.</li><li>to follow, make out, or determine the course or line of, especially by going backward from the latest evidence, nearest existence, etc.: to trace one's ancestry to the Pilgrims.</li><li>to follow (footprints, evidence, the history or course of something, etc.).</li><li>to follow the course, development, or history of: to trace a political movement.</li><li>to ascertain by investigation; find out; discover: The police were unable to trace his whereabouts.</li><li>to draw (a line, outline, figure, etc.).</li><li>to make a plan, diagram, or map of.</li><li>to copy (a drawing, plan, etc.) by following the lines of the original on a superimposed transparent sheet.</li><li>to mark or ornament with lines, figures, etc.</li><li>to make an impression or imprinting of (a design, pattern, etc.).</li><li>(of a self-registering instrument) to print in a curved, broken, or wavy-lined manner.</li><li>to put down in writing.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb</strong></p><ul><li>(used without object) to go back in history, ancestry, or origin; date back in time: Her family traces back to Paul Revere.</li><li>to follow a course, trail, etc.; make one's way.</li><li>(of a self-registering instrument) to print a record in a curved, broken, or wavy-lined manner.</li></ul>