The difference between Trace and Trail
When used as nouns, trace means an act of tracing, whereas trail means the track or indication marking the route followed by something that has passed, such as the footprints of animal on land or the contrail of an airplane in the sky.
When used as verbs, trace means to follow the trail of, whereas trail means to follow behind (someone or something).
check bellow for the other definitions of Trace and Trail
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Trace as a noun:
An act of tracing.
Examples:
"Your cell phone company can put a trace on your line."
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Trace as a noun:
An enquiry sent out for a missing article, such as a letter or an express package.
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Trace as a noun:
A mark left as a sign of passage of a person or animal.
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Trace as a noun:
A very small amount.
Examples:
"All of our chocolates may contain traces of nuts."
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Trace as a noun (electronics):
A current-carrying conductive pathway on a printed circuit board.
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Trace as a noun:
An informal road or prominent path in an arid area.
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Trace as a noun:
One of two straps, chains, or ropes of a harness, extending from the collar or breastplate to a whippletree attached to a vehicle or thing to be drawn; a tug.
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Trace as a noun (engineering):
A connecting bar or rod, pivoted at each end to the end of another piece, for transmitting motion, especially from one plane to another; specifically, such a piece in an organ stop action to transmit motion from the trundle to the lever actuating the stop slider.
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Trace as a noun (fortification):
The ground plan of a work or works.
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Trace as a noun:
The intersection of a plane of projection, or an original plane, with a coordinate plane.
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Trace as a noun (mathematics):
The sum of the diagonal elements of a square matrix.
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Trace as a noun (grammar):
An empty category occupying a position in the syntactic structure from which something has been moved, used to explain constructions such as wh-movement and the passive.
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Trace as a verb (transitive):
To follow the trail of.
Examples:
"rfquotek Cowper"
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Trace as a verb:
To follow the history of.
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Trace as a verb (transitive):
To draw or sketch lightly or with care.
Examples:
"He carefully traced the outlines of the old building before him."
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Trace as a verb (transitive):
To copy onto a sheet of paper superimposed over the original, by drawing over its lines.
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Trace as a verb (transitive, obsolete):
To copy; to imitate.
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Trace as a verb (intransitive, obsolete):
To walk; to go; to travel.
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Trace as a verb (transitive, obsolete):
To walk over; to pass through; to traverse.
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Trace as a verb:
To follow the execution of the program by making it to stop after every instruction, or by making it print a message after every step.
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Trail as a verb (transitive):
To follow behind (someone or something); to tail (someone or something).
Examples:
"The hunters trailed their prey deep into the woods."
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Trail as a verb (transitive):
To drag (something) behind on the ground.
Examples:
"You'll get your coat all muddy if you trail it around like that."
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Trail as a verb (transitive):
To leave (a trail of).
Examples:
"He walked into the house, soaking wet, and trailed water all over the place."
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Trail as a verb (transitive):
To show a trailer of (a film, TV show etc.); to release or publish a preview of (a report etc.) in advance of the full publication.
Examples:
"His new film was trailed on TV last night."
"There were no surprises in this morning's much-trailed budget statement."
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Trail as a verb:
To be losing, to be behind in a competition.
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Trail as a verb (military):
To carry (a firearm) with the breech near the ground and the upper part inclined forward, the piece being held by the right hand near the middle.
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Trail as a verb:
To flatten (grass, etc.) by walking through it; to tread down.
Examples:
"rfquotek Longfellow"
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Trail as a verb (dated):
To take advantage of the ignorance of; to impose upon.
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Trail as a noun:
The track or indication marking the route followed by something that has passed, such as the footprints of animal on land or the contrail of an airplane in the sky.
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Trail as a noun:
A route for travel over land, especially a narrow, unpaved pathway for use by hikers, horseback riders, etc.
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Trail as a noun:
A trailer broadcast on television for a forthcoming film or programme.
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Trail as a noun (graph theory):
A walk in which all the edges are distinct.