to trace
1
7.9
- verb
- /treɪs/
- Since they had to trace each letter with their fingers, reading was slow and inefficient.
- trace the words
- hard to trace
Examples
-
A budding Americanist at the time, I now have some difficulty in tracing what most engaged my imagination in this new vision of America.
Academic text (1997) -
When I found the old letters, I had to trace the faded ink to understand the message.
-
Liberty's finger traced the river's old course.
Fiction book (1993) -
Its binding was frayed, and Amir ran his pinky along the cover, tracing out the words of the title.
Fiction book (1993) -
As the teacher explained the ancient text, the students struggled to trace the letters with their pencils.
-
To decipher the handwritten note, she had to carefully trace each difficult character.
Synonyms
76
4.6
To read messy handwriting, faded text, or a code that is hard to understand
Phrasal Verbs
Compounds
- Specialized
7
4.4
A very small amount of a metal or mineral the body needs to stay healthy
- Specialized
1
6.7
A recorded list of a computer program's memory use to help find errors
- Specialized
1
6.7
A way to find tiny amounts of explosives on bags using a cloth and a machine
- Specialized
1
5.4
A device that checks for tiny amounts of explosives at security checkpoints
- Specialized
1
5.2
A tool that shows each step a computer program takes while it runs to find errors
- Specialized
A device that finds very small amounts of chemicals in air, water or on surfaces
- Specialized
A type of fortress design with many triangular outer walls that let defenders' guns cover each other
How Readable
Surface Forms
Etymology
Trace meaning to read faint writing comes from the word for a small mark or sign (a trace), itself from Latin trahere 'to pull'. So to trace faint handwriting is to find and make out the tiny marks left on the page.