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Trace vs Characteristic - What's the difference?

trace | characteristic | Related terms |

Trace is a related term of characteristic.


As a verb trace

is .

As an adjective characteristic is

being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.

As a noun characteristic is

a distinguishable feature of a person or thing.

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.

    Anagrams

    * * * * * ----

    characteristic

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Being a distinguishing feature of a person or thing.
  • * , chapter=12
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.}}

    Synonyms

    * distinctive * exclusive * idiosyncratic * indicative * representative * signature * specific * typical

    Antonyms

    * uncharacteristic * untypical

    Derived terms

    * characteristic function * characteristicness

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a distinguishable feature of a person or thing
  • (mathematics) the integer part of a logarithm
  • (nautical) the distinguishing features of a navigational light on a lighthouse etc by which it can be identified (colour, pattern of flashes etc)
  • (algebra, field theory) The minimum number of times that the unit of a field must be added unto itself in order to yield that field's zero, or, if that minimum natural number does not exist, then (the integer) zero.
  • A field's characteristic, if non-zero, must be a prime number.

    Synonyms

    * attribute * idiosyncrasy * mannerism * quality * tendency * trademark * trait * See also

    Derived terms

    * defining characteristic

    See also

    * mantissa