All 50 Uses of
trace
in
Atlas Shrugged
- New tracing had been added recently and the red streak had been extended south beyond El Paso-but Eddie Willers turned away hastily when his eyes reached that point.†
Chpt 1.1
- There was no trace of sun in the gray spread of clouds, yet the rails glistened, as if the metal caught light out of space.†
Chpt 1.4
- The few traces of copper were not worth the effort of extracting them.†
Chpt 1.5
- He spoke five languages, and he spoke English without a trace of accent, a precise, cultured English deliberately mixed with slang.†
Chpt 1.5
- There were no traces of human existence around them.†
Chpt 1.5
- When she saw him again, no trace of that incident remained in his manner.†
Chpt 1.5
- She noticed suddenly that she was running toward him; she had lost all trace of exhaustion.†
Chpt 1.7
- At the end of the street, across the river, against the glow of a factory, she saw the thin tracing of a power station.†
Chpt 1.7
- His gaunt face, with staring eyes and shrunken features that had been delicate, still retained a trace of distinction.†
Chpt 1.7
- He vanished without a trace-into the great unknown of mediocrity.†
Chpt 1.7
- But she had felt, while flying across the continent, that there would be no trace of him to find.†
Chpt 1.8
- The long strip of concrete was bleached to the powdery gray of bones left on a desert, as if sun and snows had eaten away the traces of tires, oil and carbon, the lustrous polish of motion.†
Chpt 1.9
- They saw no trace of a road to the factory in the tangled miles of trees and hillsides.†
Chpt 1.9
- When she walked through the silent yards-where steel bridges still hung overhead, tracing lines of geometrical perfection across the sky —her only wish was not to see any of it, but she forced herself to look.†
Chpt 1.9
- I don't know where you could trace them now.†
Chpt 1.10
- Try and trace them all over the United States.†
Chpt 1.10
- No one had had any warning about his decision, and no events could be traced to explain it.†
Chpt 1.10
- I found no trace of them in the basement, after his death.†
Chpt 1.10
- He smiled, and she knew that the smile was intended to break the bond which he, too, had felt: the smile had a trace of courteous mockery.†
Chpt 1.10
- Don't ask me to tell you now what trail I've followed, trying to trace that motor and to find its inventor.†
Chpt 1.10
- He had a finely traced mustache, and his smooth black hair made the Institute office boys say that he used the same shoe polish on both ends of him.†
Chpt 2.1
- "You found it impossible to trace the inventor?" he asked.†
Chpt 2.1
- His was the only face that had the carefree look and the brilliant smile proper to the enjoyment of a party; but his eyes seemed intentionally expressionless, holding no trace of gaiety, showing-like a warning signal-nothing but the activity of a heightened perceptiveness.†
Chpt 2.2
- There was no trace of amusement left in Francisco's eyes; Rearden had never faced so solemn a look of respect, "Yes, Mr. Rearden," he answered quietly.†
Chpt 2.2
- Watching Rearden, he concluded that the man had long since decided to give in-because he caught no trace of any fear.†
Chpt 2.3
- The rest was easy to trace.†
Chpt 2.3 *
- Francisco looked at a steel bridge traced in black strokes against red steam beyond the window, and said, pointing, "Every one of those girders has a limit to the load it can carry.†
Chpt 2.3
- The course was hard to trace: the gaunt figure on the edge of the desk was erect, the cold blue eyes showed nothing but the intensity of a glance fixed upon a great distance, only the inflexible mouth betrayed a line drawn by pain.†
Chpt 2.3
- He could find no trace of pain in her manner.†
Chpt 2.4
- Francisco d'Anconia, in shirt sleeves, a strand of hair hanging down over his face, lay stretched on the floor, on his stomach, propped up by his elbows, biting the end of a pencil in concentration upon some point of the intricate tracing before him.†
Chpt 2.4
- Nobody traced the closing of a motor company in Michigan, that had waited for a shipment of ball bearings, its machinery idle, its workers on full pay; or the closing of a sawmill in Oregon, that had waited for a new motor; or the closing of a lumber yard in Iowa, left without supply; or the bankruptcy of a building contractor in Illinois who, failing to get his lumber on time, found his contracts cancelled and the purchasers of his homes sent wandering off down snowswept roads in…†
Chpt 2.5
- The countryside —with the darkness washing away all traces of human activity, leaving only an untouched earth which he had once been able to handle-was real.†
Chpt 2.7
- He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men's minds, we will not have a decent world to live in.†
Chpt 2.7
- When Rearden turned to look through the farm field, there was no trace of him and no sign of movement anywhere in the darkness.†
Chpt 2.7
- There were traces of tears in Eddie's eyes, but he made no attempt to hide them, he stood straight, as if the tears or any embarrassment or any apology for them were as irrelevant to him as to her.†
Chpt 2.8
- It would have taken a staff of accountants to figure that out, and a staff of engineers to trace the way it was piped, directly or indirectly, into his office.†
Chpt 2.10
- We began to think that he had damned us and there was no escape from his verdict and we would never be able to get away from him-and this was the more terrible because he was not pursuing us, it was we who were suddenly looking for him and he had merely gone without a trace.†
Chpt 2.10
- He was looking down at her with the faint trace of a smile, it was not a look of discovery, but of familiar contemplation-as if he, too, were seeing the long-expected and the never-doubted.†
Chpt 3.1
- On a distant mountainside, in the dense green of a forest, she saw a. pine tree slanting down suddenly, tracing a curve, like the hand of a clock, then crashing abruptly out of sight.†
Chpt 3.1
- There was no trace of exhaustion left in her bearing and no remnant of violence.†
Chpt 3.1
- …it, have nothing to sacrifice, and those who have, are not willing any longer-when men see that neither their hearts nor their muscles can save them, but the mind they damned is not there to answer then: screams for help-when they collapse as they must, as men without mind-when they have no pretense of authority left, no remnant of law, no trace of morality, no hope, no food and no way to obtain it-when they collapse and the road is clear-then we'll come back to rebuild the world.†
Chpt 3.1
- She had never experienced the pleasure of motion, of walking as if her feet had no weight to carry, as if the support of the cane in her hand were merely a superfluous touch of elegance, the pleasure of feeling her steps trace swift, straight lines, of sensing the faultless, spontaneous precision of her gestures-as she experienced it while placing their food on the table in front of the two men.†
Chpt 3.2
- This-she thought, looking at the mine-was the story of human wealth written across the mountains: a few pine trees hung over the cut, contorted by the storms that had raged through the wilderness for centuries, six men worked on the shelves, and an inordinate amount of complex machinery traced delicate lines against the sky; the machinery did most of the work.†
Chpt 3.2
- The sun had not yet vanished beyond the mountains, but the sky was an even, deep, deceptively clear blue that blended with the blue of invisible clouds into a single spread, hiding the sun; only the edges of the clouds were outlined by a thin thread of flame, and it looked like a glowing, twisted net of neon tubing, she thought …. like a chart of winding rivers …. like …. like the map of a railroad traced in white fire on the sky.†
Chpt 3.2
- Her map, her calendar, the picture of Nat Taggart were on the walls, and no trace was left of the Clifton Locey era, "I understand that I am still the Operating Vice-President of this railroad?" she asked, sitting down at her desk.†
Chpt 3.3
- Couldn't you trace your way back to it?†
Chpt 3.3
- …point, every yard, depot, station, spur and siding of Taggart Transcontinental for every freight car in sight or reach, ordering them to unload, drop, dump, scuttle anything and proceed to Minnesota at once, while they kept calling the yards, stations and presidents of every railroad still half in existence anywhere across the map, begging for cars for Minnesota-she went through the task of tracing from face to coward's face the destination of the freight cars that had vanished.†
Chpt 3.5
- She saw a mindless resentment in their eyes and a sneaking trace of the lifeless, sexless, smutty leer with which men look at a poster advertising burlesque.†
Chpt 3.5
- If you wish to achieve full virtue, you must seek no gratitude in return for your sacrifice, no praise, no love, no admiration, no self-esteem, not even the pride of being virtuous; the faintest trace of any gain dilutes your virtue.†
Chpt 3.7
- On the doors of abandoned houses, on the gates of crumbling factories, on the walls of government buildings, there appeared, once in a while, traced in chalk, in paint, in blood, the curving mark which was the sign of the dollar.†
Chpt 3.8
Definitions:
-
(trace as in: found a trace of) a small quantity; or any indication or evidence ofThe exact meaning of this sense of trace depends upon its context. For example:
- a small indication that something was present -- as in "The plane disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean without leaving a trace."
- a very small amount of something -- as in "The blood test showed a trace of steroids."
- any evidence of something -- as in "We did not find a trace of the gene."
-
(trace as in: trace the origin or development) to find, search, research, or keep track ofThis sense of trace usually has to do with information. It's specific meaning depends on its context. For example:
to find or search for something through investigation -- often the origin of something:
- "The police traced the call." -- found out where it originated
- "We are tracing the lost luggage" -- searching for
- "Can you trace the problem to its source?" -- find through investigation
- "She traced her family history to discover that her great-grandmother came to the United States from Lithuania when the Nazis occupied it." -- discovered something through investigation
to research or report on the development of something
- "She traced the history of the automobile in her paper." -- researched the development of something
- "Her presentation traced recent progress in alternative energy solutions." -- reported on
to monitor or keep track of the progress or development of something
- "She traces the progress of at-risk students." -- monitors information
- "I used binoculars to trace her progress up the mountain." -- monitor, follow, or track