vestige

[ ves-tij ]
See synonyms for vestige on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a mark, trace, or visible evidence of something that is no longer present or in existence: A few columns were the last vestiges of a Greek temple.

  2. a surviving evidence or remainder of some condition, practice, etc.: These superstitions are vestiges of an ancient religion.

  1. a very slight trace or amount of something: Not a vestige remains of the former elegance of the house.

  2. Biology. a degenerate or imperfectly developed organ or structure that has little or no utility, but that in an earlier stage of the individual or in preceding evolutionary forms of the organism performed a useful function.

  3. Archaic. a footprint; track.

Origin of vestige

1
First recorded in 1535–45; from Middle French, from Latin vestīgium “footprint”

synonym study For vestige

1. See trace1.

Other words for vestige

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use vestige in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for vestige

vestige

/ (ˈvɛstɪdʒ) /


noun
  1. a small trace, mark, or amount; hint: a vestige of truth; no vestige of the meal

  2. biology an organ or part of an organism that is a small nonfunctioning remnant of a functional organ in an ancestor

Origin of vestige

1
C17: via French from Latin vestīgium track

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012