TRACING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tracing mean? 

• TRACING (noun)
  The noun TRACING has 3 senses:

1. the act of drawing a plan or diagram or outline

2. a drawing created by superimposing a semitransparent sheet of paper on the original image and copying on it the lines of the original image

3. the discovery and description of the course of development of something

  Familiarity information: TRACING used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TRACING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of drawing a plan or diagram or outline

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("tracing" is a kind of...):

drafting; draftsmanship; drawing (the creation of artistic pictures or diagrams)

Derivation:

trace (make a mark or lines on a surface)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A drawing created by superimposing a semitransparent sheet of paper on the original image and copying on it the lines of the original image

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

trace; tracing

Hypernyms ("tracing" is a kind of...):

drawing (a representation of forms or objects on a surface by means of lines)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The discovery and description of the course of development of something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

the tracing of genealogies

Hypernyms ("tracing" is a kind of...):

discovery; find; uncovering (the act of discovering something)

 Context examples 

“Hullo! Hullo!” he added as he looked hard at the corner of a tracing before putting it in the box.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Measurements or calculations on measurements obtained from electrocardiographic tracings.

(ECG Measurement, NCI Thesaurus)

Well, if our conjecture is correct and the girl’s name is or was Sophy Kratides, we should have no difficulty in tracing her.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

SARS-CoV-1 was eradicated by intensive contact tracing and case isolation measures and no cases have been detected since 2004.

(New coronavirus stable for hours on surface, National Institutes of Health)

The first one, tracing the history back to an unknown origin, is so fascinating.

(Swedish academy announces 2019 Nobel Prize winners in physics, Wikinews)

As a means of tracing him, if he wished to inquire about him from any third person.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"You look like the effigy of a young knight asleep on his tomb," she said, carefully tracing the well-cut profile defined against the dark stone.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

““Unless he brings me back a lady,”” said Mr. Peggotty, tracing out that part with his finger.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The act of observing and recording the heart rate for determining the baseline values and any variations or other abnormal tracings.

(Heart Monitoring, NCI Thesaurus)

Using a technique called lineage tracing, scientists determined that theca cells in mice come from both inside and outside the ovary, from embryonic tissue called mesenchyme.

(Study solves ovarian cell mystery, shedding new light on reproductive disorders, NIH)