traced

7 definitions • 12 examples

past simple and past participle of

to find someone or something that was lost:

The police are trying to trace the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned outside a hospital.

Attempts to trace the whereabouts of a man seen leaving the scene of the crime have so far been unsuccessful.

Their missing daughter was finally traced to (= found in) Manchester.

to find the origin of something:

The phone company was unable to trace the call.

No one has yet been able to trace the source of the rumour.

to discover the causes or origins of something by examining the way in which it has developed:

The outbreak of food poisoning was traced to some contaminated shellfish.

She has traced her family history back to the seventeenth century.

The practice of giving eggs at Easter can be traced back to (= first happened in) festivals in ancient China.

to describe the way in which something has developed:

The film traces the events leading up to the Russian Revolution in 1917.

to copy a drawing or pattern, etc. by drawing over its lines through a thin piece of transparent paper:

Did you draw this picture yourself, or did you trace it?

She learned to write her name by tracing out the letters.

to draw a shape by showing the main or outer lines:

The child was tracing patterns in/on the sand with a stick.