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What is the difference between protract and tract?

protract | tract |

As verbs the difference between protract and tract

is that protract is to draw out; to extend, especially in duration while tract is (obsolete) to pursue, follow; to track.

As a noun tract is

an area or expanse of land.

protract

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To draw out; to extend, especially in duration.
  • *2010 , (Christopher Hitchens), ‘The Men Who Made England’, The Atlantic , Mar 2010:
  • *:Still, form these extraordinary pages you can learn that it's very bad to be burned alive on a windy day, because the breeze will keep flicking the flames away from you and thus protract the process.
  • To use a protractor.
  • (surveying) To draw to a scale; to lay down the lines and angles of, with scale and protractor; to plot.
  • To put off to a distant time; to delay; to defer.
    • to protract a decision or duty
    (Shakespeare)
  • To extend; to protrude.
    • A cat can protract and retract its claws.

    Synonyms

    * (to draw out) prolong

    Derived terms

    * protractile

    tract

    English

    Etymology 1

    From tractus, the perfect passive participle of (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An area or expanse.
    • an unexplored tract of sea
  • * Milton
    • the deep tract of hell
  • * Addison
    • a very high mountain joined to the mainland by a narrow tract of earth
  • A series of connected body organs, as in the digestive tract .
  • A small booklet such as a pamphlet, often for promotional or informational uses.
  • A brief treatise or discourse on a subject.
  • * Jonathan Swift
    • The church clergy at that writ the best collection of tracts against popery that ever appeared.
  • A commentator's view or perspective on a subject.
  • Continued or protracted duration, length, extent
  • * Milton
    • improved by tract of time
  • * 1843 ,
    • Nay, in another case of litigation, the unjust Standard bearer, for his own profit, asserting that the cause belonged not to St. Edmund’s Court, but to his in , involved us in travellings and innumerable expenses, vexing the servants of St. Edmund for a long tract of time
  • Part of the proper of the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, used instead of the alleluia during Lenten or pre-Lenten seasons, in a Requiem Mass, and on a few other penitential occasions.
  • (obsolete) Continuity or extension of anything.
    • the tract of speech
    (Older)
  • (obsolete) Traits; features; lineaments.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • The discovery of a man's self by the tracts of his countenance is a great weakness.
  • (obsolete) The footprint of a wild animal.
    • (Dryden)
  • (obsolete) Track; trace.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
    • Efface all tract of its traduction.
  • * Shakespeare
    • But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, / Leaving no tract behind.
  • (obsolete) Treatment; exposition.
    • (Shakespeare)
    Related terms
    * tractate noun

    Etymology 2

    From tractus , the participle stem of (etyl) trahere.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To pursue, follow; to track.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.i:
    • Where may that treachour then (said he) be found, / Or by what meanes may I his footing tract ?
  • (obsolete) To draw out; to protract.
    • (Ben Jonson)
    English syncopic forms ----