9 uses
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1 —1 use as in:
trace the origin or development
Definition
to find, search, research, or keep track of
This 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
- A few lines are traceable.Chapter 37 (88% in)
There are no more uses of "trace" flagged with this meaning in Main Street.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —8 uses
exact meaning not specified
- It was the only trace of Carol in the room.Chapter 1 (46% in)
- The delighted Bea helped her bring out the ancestral folding sewing-table, whose yellow and black top was scarred with dotted lines from a dressmaker's tracing-wheel, and to set it with an embroidered lunch-cloth, and the mauve-glazed Japanese tea-set which she had brought from St. Paul.Chapter 5 (93% in)
- Now she put on her new moleskin cap, which made her face small and innocent, she rubbed off the traces of a lip-stick—and fled across the alley before her admirable resolution should sneak away.Chapter 15 (39% in)
- When Mrs. Erdstrom had followed the doctor out of the room Carol glanced in a friendly way at the grained pine cupboard, the framed Lutheran Konfirmations Attest, the traces of fried eggs and sausages on the dining table against the wall, and a jewel among calendars, presenting not only a lithographic young woman with cherry lips, and a Swedish advertisement of Axel Egge's grocery, but also a thermometer and a match-holder.Chapter 15 (64% in)
- He galloped to the station, brought home railway maps, and traced motor-routes from Gopher Prairie to Winnipeg or Des Moines or Grand Marais, thinking aloud and expecting her to be effusive about such academic questions as "Now I wonder if we could stop at Baraboo and break the jump from La Crosse to Chicago?"Chapter 16 (10% in)
- She knew that he was satisfied with Gopher Prairie, but it gave her vicarious hope to think of going, to ask for railroad folders at the station, to trace the maps with a restless forefinger.Chapter 20 (90% in)
- In ready-made clothes and ready-made high-school phrases they sank into propriety, and the sound American customs had absorbed without one trace of pollution another alien invasion.Chapter 22 (35% in)
- She recalled a hundred grotesqueries: her comic dismay at his having chewed tobacco, the evening when she had tried to read poetry to him; matters which had seemed to vanish with no trace or sequence.Chapter 24 (1% in)
There are no more uses of "trace" in Main Street.
Typical Usage
(best examples)