vestige

[ves-tij]

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.

   Synonyms: token

2. a surviving evidence or remainder of some condition, practice, etc..

   These superstitions are vestiges of an ancient religion.

3. a very slight trace or amount of something.

   Not a vestige remains of the former elegance of the house.

   Synonyms: suggestion, hint

4. 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.

5. Archaic.,  a footprint; track.

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of vestige¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of vestige¹

C17: via French from Latin vestīgium track

Synonym Study

See trace ¹.

Example Sentences

Casualties are extensive, and may include the last vestiges of this nation’s dignity and self-respect.

Read more on Salon

Everywhere Jay and his entourage go, a piece of cheesecake follows, the last, haunting vestige of a star’s rider that should’ve been updated long ago.

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Yet Lorde views it as her duty as a performer to “bring all these parts of myself forward,” she says — even the songs that seem now like vestiges of a different life.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The governor has an $86 million war chest that he’s used to unseat insufficiently loyal incumbents, part of a larger right-wing push to eviscerate the last vestiges of bipartisanship in the bright-red Legislature.

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Discovery is burdened with billions in debt, a vestige of Discovery’s takeover of WarnerMedia from AT&T three years ago.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• glimmer 
• relic 
• remnant 
• residue