traces

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of trace.

   Investigators discovered traces of the missing chemical in the soil.

   Only faint traces of the ancient road remain visible today.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs here. As a noun it is the plural of trace, and the same letters also serve as the verb's present-tense form (she traces). The plural gathers every noun sense of the singular: marks left by a passing person or animal, small residual amounts of a substance, and the conductive pathways that carry current across a printed circuit board.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Extremely small amounts of a substance that remain behind, often too slight to notice easily.

   Like the faint smell of smoke lingering long after a fire has gone out.

   The lab detected traces of lead in the drinking water.

   Only traces of the original mixture remained at the bottom of the bottle.

   Similarremnants, vestiges, particles

   Note

   A plural in form that behaves like a mass noun. In phrases such as traces of lead or traces of the mixture, nobody is picturing separate items, and putting a number in front would sound odd. It nearly always comes with of plus the substance. Compare the ordinary plural, where the marks or remnants are distinct and can be counted.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of trace.

   The investigator traces every call back to its source.

   A narrow stream traces its way through the valley.

   Note

   Most present-tense uses take a direct object, as the verb's transitive senses do: she traces the call, the outline, the family line. The stream that traces its way through a valley bends that pattern toward movement. It comes close in feel to an older, now obsolete sense of trace, "to walk, to go, to travel".

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