- present participle of trace.
noun
-
a copy made by tracing
-
the act of making a trace
-
a record made by an instrument
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of tracing
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at trace 1, -ing 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"These incidents have disrupted surveillance, case investigation, contact tracing, treatment and community engagements showing how attacks can undermine not only health services, but also the capacity to detect and contain outbreaks," said Musani.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, tracing the Universe backward leads to the Big Bang singularity, where density becomes infinite, and the known laws of physics no longer work.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 11, 2026
After a few blocks on Reseda, Papas turned back into the neighborhood centered around Etiwanda and started tracing loops across the blocks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
Comparatively, DR Congo has had a harder time with surveillance and contact tracing.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
As he ran, he could feel the sweat tracing a line down his back, every single drop representing the work he’d been putting in since that very first win years ago.
From "We'll Fly Away" by Bryan Bliss
An army of people would spend a week or two searching for tiger tracks and making tracings or plaster casts of the left hind foot.
From Slate ● Apr. 28, 2026
The platform’s inputs are “imaging of any type—ECG, heart tracings, echocardiograms, blood tests, labs, genetic tests and, importantly, the electronic health record,” Dr. Mansi says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 19, 2026
I could ignore my past struggles, pretend they no longer matter, but indelible tracings remain.
From Salon ● Aug. 28, 2022
Under the glass surface on his desk, Manger keeps sketched tracings of the names of officers who died in the line of duty under his command.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 30, 2019
A cheerful brown, they were, with tracings of darker brown.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
