Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TRACE, v.t. [Fr. tracer; It. tracciare; Sp. trazare; L. tracto, from traho, Eng. to draw, to drag.]

1. To mark out; to draw or delineate with marks; as, to trace a figure with a pencil; to trace the outline of any thing.
2. To follow by some mark that has been left by something which has preceded; to follow by footsteps or tracks. You may trace the deluge quite round the globe. Burnet. I feel thy power to trace the ways / Of highest agents. Milton.
3. To follow with exactness. That servile path thou nobly dost decline, / Of tracing word by word, and line by tine. Denham.
4. To walk over. We do trace this alley up and down. Shak.