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Tracking vs Trace - What's the difference?

tracking | trace |

As verbs the difference between tracking and trace

is that tracking is while trace is .

As a noun tracking

is the act by which something is tracked.

tracking

English

Verb

(head)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act by which something is tracked.
  • * 1963 , Abraham C. Keller, The Telling of Tales in Rabelais: Aspects of His Narrative Art
    • In volume, the erudite studies of his language, the trackings of his numerous references to persons, places, and things around him, and the reconstruction of the details of his little-known life have occupied the most attention

    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

    * * * * * ----