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Speck vs Trace - What's the difference?

speck | trace | Related terms |

In transitive terms the difference between speck and trace

is that speck is to mark with specks; to speckle while trace is to copy onto a sheet of paper superimposed over the original, by drawing over its lines.

speck

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)
  • (countable) A tiny spot, especially of dirt etc.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Out of the gloom , passage=[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.}}
  • (uncountable) A juniper-flavoured ham originally from Tyrol.
  • A very small thing; a particle; a whit.
  • * (Walter Savage Landor), quoted in 1971, Ernest Dilworth, Walter Savage Landor , Twayne Publishers, page 88,
    • Onward, and many bright specks bubble up along the blue Aegean; islands, every one of which, if the songs and stories of the pilots are true, is the monument of a greater man than I am.
  • A small etheostomoid fish, , common in the eastern United States.
    • Synonyms
    * (small thing) See also .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To mark with specks; to speckle.
    • paper specked by impurities in the water used in its manufacture
  • * 1667 , '', 1991, Stephen Orgel, ?Jonathan Goldberg (editors), ''The Major Works , 2003, paperback, page 534,
    • Each flower of slender stalk, whose head though gay / Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold, / Hung drooping unsustained,

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (-)
  • The blubber of whales or other marine mammals.
  • The fat of the hippopotamus.

    • Anagrams

    *

    trace

    English

    (wikipedia trace)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) trace, traas, from (etyl) , from the verb (see below).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An act of tracing.
  • A mark left as a sign of passage of a person or animal.
  • A very small amount.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=7 citation , passage=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.}}
  • (electronics) An electric 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.
  • (fortification) The ground plan of a work or works.
  • 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.
    • Derived terms
    * downtrace, uptrace
    Synonyms
    * (mark left as a sign of passage of a person or animal) track, trail * (small amount) see also .

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) tracen, from (etyl) tracer, .

    Verb

  • To follow the trail of.
  • * Milton
    • I feel thy power to trace the ways / Of highest agents.
    (Cowper)
  • To follow the history of.
  • * T. Burnet
    • You may trace the deluge quite round the globe.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=July 19 , author=Ella Davies , title=Sticks insects survive one million years without sex , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=They traced the ancient lineages of two species to reveal the insects' lengthy history of asexual reproduction.}}
  • To draw or sketch lightly or with care.
    • He carefully traced the outlines of the old building before him.
  • To copy onto a sheet of paper superimposed over the original, by drawing over its lines.
  • (obsolete) To copy; to imitate.
  • * Denham
    • That servile path thou nobly dost decline, / Of tracing word, and line by line.
  • (obsolete) To walk; to go; to travel.
  • * Spenser
    • Not wont on foot with heavy arms to trace .
  • (obsolete) To walk over; to pass through; to traverse.
  • * Shakespeare
    • We do trace this alley up and down.
    Related terms
    * tracing

    Anagrams

    * * * * * ----