TRACE

Definitions

1. 1. To mark out; to draw or delineate with marks; especially, to copy, as a drawing or engraving, by following the lines and marking them on a sheet superimposed, through which they appear; as, to trace a figure or an outline; a traced drawing. Some faintly traced features or outline of the mother and the child, slowly lading into the twilight of the woods. Hawthorne.
2. 2. To follow by some mark that has been left by a person or thing which has preceded; to follow by footsteps, tracks, or tokens. Cowper. You may trace the deluge quite round the globe. T. Burnet. I feel thy power . . . to trace the ways Of highest agents. Milton.
3. 3. Hence, to follow the trace or track of. How all the way the prince on footpace traced. Spenser.
4. 4. To copy; to imitate. That servile path thou nobly dost decline, Of tracing word, and line by line. Denham.
5. 5. To walk over; to pass through; to traverse. We do tracethis alley up and down. Shak.