Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Tracing   Listen
noun
Tracing  n.  
1.
The act of one who traces; especially, the act of copying by marking on thin paper, or other transparent substance, the lines of a pattern placed beneath; also, the copy thus producted.
2.
A regular path or track; a course.
Tracing cloth, Tracing paper, specially prepared transparent cloth or paper, which enables a drawing or print to be clearly seen through it, and so allows the use of a pen or pencil to produce a facsimile by following the lines of the original placed beneath.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Tracing" Quotes from Famous Books



... In tracing the causes which led to the organization of the American Colonization Society, the statistics of the penitentiaries down to 1827, were given, as affording an index to the moral condition of the free colored people at that period. The facts of a similar kind, for ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... and went home. At dusk he turned out to find Cole, and tracing him from one public-house to another, at last lighted on him in ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... pious hands of "two brother Masons," many years, it is said, after the event which it purports to record; and from the wording of the epitaph which commences, "Near this place lyes the body," &c., it obviously does not profess to indicate—what, doubtless, there was no longer any means of tracing—the exact spot in which Sterne's remains were laid. But, wherever the grave really was, the body interred in it, according to the strange story to which I have referred, is no longer there. That story goes: that two days after the burial, on the night of the 24th of ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... could set down here a chart of the mixed emotions then expressed on that young lady's face. She did not look at Will, knowing perhaps that she already had him captive of her bow and spear. Neither did Will look at us, but sat tracing figures with a forefinger in the dust between his knees, wondering perhaps how to excuse or explain, and getting ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... modern cattlemen "ride circle," so did those velvet-jacketed, silver-braided horsemen gallop forth in pairs from a common center that was the chosen rodeo ground. As if they were tracing the invisible spokes of a huge wheel laid flat and filling the valley from mountain range to mountain range, they rode out until they had reached the approximate rim of the circle. Then, turning, they rode more slowly back to the rodeo ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... Another genius, in tracing the art of cookery, derives from it nothing less than the origin of society; and I think that some philosopher has defined man to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... In tracing a portrait so much resembling bellicose and conquering Prussia, the sharp eye of Ardant du Picq had recognized clearly the danger which immediately threatened us and which his deluded and trifling fellow ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... excited than we were when he learned how far we had gone in tracing out the scant clews that we had uncovered. As Garrick unfolded his plan, the commissioner immediately began to make arrangements to accompany us out into the country ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve

... at the Court of France as one of the maids of honour to the unfortunate Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of Charles the Second of England. The contemporaries of the merry monarch, witnesses and censors of his political errors, in tracing them to their source, have attributed them primarily to the foreign favourite, who was, more than any other of the many mistresses of that Prince, odious in the eyes ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... started tracing myself back and I found out I was the murderer. And I was the detective after the murderer. I was everybody concerned. In a moment I was overcome by criminal fear and I fled. I fled all over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... other kinds of diagrams in which the two co-ordinates of a point in a plane are employed to indicate the simultaneous values of two related quantities. If a sheet of paper is made to move, say horizontally, with a constant known velocity, while a tracing point is made to move in a vertical straight line, the height varying as the value of any given physical quantity, the point will trace out a curve on the paper from which the value of that quantity at any given time may be determined. This ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... adhere immovably to the ancient books and the ancient ritual, which are made sacred to them by the approbation of national councils and the blessing of generations of patriarchs. Such was the inception of the schism, the Raskol, which still divides the Russian Church. Tracing the matter back to its source, the contest is seen to turn upon the knotty question of the transmission and the translation of the sacred texts, which has more than once divided the churches of the West. In Russia no one was competent to form a proper judgment ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... heard of their being produced: but, then, I should not have been likely to hear." Which was very true, but very unsatisfactory. Could we succeed in tracing even one of those papers, a clue might be found to the mystery of Mr. ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... a deposit," declared Frank. "We'll stick up a hundred dollars apiece on 'em. If they are worth more you can afford to take chances. If we're horse thieves you won't have much trouble in tracing us. Besides that, horse thieves do not work in this way. If they did they'd get the worst end most of the time, for they'd have to chance it on the horses being worth ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... delight at his discoveries, felt no uneasiness. Suddenly, however, he was horrified at hearing the most dreadful screams, evidently the result of great terror, proceeding from the direction in which his son had gone, and he hastily threw down his tools and ran to see what had happened. Tracing his path by the sound, he met the little boy, who was running headlong, and was evidently terribly frightened, and on questioning him the man elicited that after picking a posy of flowers he felt tired, and lay down on the grass and fell ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... but may find in this genealogical classic a full record of the highly improbable happenings which led to the emigration of Captain Edward Musgrave, and later of Cynthia Musgrave, to the Colony of Virginia; and none but must admire Colonel Musgrave's painstaking and accurate tracing of the American Musgraves who descended from this couple, down to the ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... In tracing the arts of handwriting and dyeing, some definite facts are to be predicated as to the most remote ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... oil-painting has been long ascribed. The volume before us is occupied chiefly in determining the real extent of the improvements they introduced, in examining the processes they employed, and in tracing the modifications of those processes adopted by later Flemings, especially Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vandyck. Incidental notices of the Italian system occur, so far as, in its earlier stages, it corresponded with that of the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... chapels is a chamber supposed to have been the tracing room wherein various drawings were prepared. The compartment has a window similar in style to those in the ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath

... marble-white pallor of the flesh, the closed eyes. Sommers stopped to kiss the cold face, and with the movement Alves's head nestled forward against his hot neck. Tears rose to his eyes and fell against her cheek; he started on once more, tracing carefully ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... explored, tracing and classifying, filled with awe. The incredible creature knew little or nothing of its own nervous system and would not have been aware of loss if the most essential portion of its brain had been surgically removed! ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan

... to add to these horrors; yet such was my frame of mind that I found a certain bitter gladness in listening to the telling of them, and in tracing between them and our own case the ghastly parallel. In our talk, which wont on in English, Fray Antonio took no part; but he could follow well enough the meaning of it in our tones. On his face was an expression of tender melancholy that seemed to me to tell of sorrow for us rather ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... ornamented with flowers, fruit-trees, &c. (and I would recommend this plan to be invariably adopted,) it not only affords the teacher an opportunity of communicating much knowledge to the children, and of tracing every thing up to the Great First Cause, but it becomes the means of establishing principles of honesty. They should not on any account be allowed to pluck the fruit or flowers; every thing should be considered as sacred; and being thus early accustomed to honesty, temptations in ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... remained, in her handmaids' charge; late, soon, Tracing words in the air with her finger, as seen that night - Those incised on the brass—till at length unwatched one noon, ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... General. We waited for a long time for him and for his report. At length he came, bringing his report with him, but with the marks of great care and anxiety upon his brow. He had discovered a defalcation in his Department. He had been occupied for a long time in tracing it out, but he had at length succeeded. He came to announce to the President that the postmaster of a certain "Cross Roads" in Kentucky had absconded, and defrauded the Government out of the sum of fifteen dollars! and worst of all, his bail ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... presence was painful both to himself and them. To Mrs. Bolton, however, he was studiously civil, and to Sophy, his friend's wife, he would gladly have shown kindness and sympathy, if he had only known how. He often watched her tracing the narrow footworn track to her baby's grave, and he longed to speak some friendly words of comfort to her, but none came to his mind when they encountered each other. No one in Upton, except Ann Holland, had seen, as he had, how thin and wan her face grew; nor had any one noticed as soon as he ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton

... serve as examples of the mode of proof adopted for tracing a number of other social phenomena to an ethnic origin. Thus Lapouge attributes the notorious depopulation of large areas in France to the sterility incident upon intermixture between the several racial types of which the population is constituted. This he seeks to prove from the occurrence of a ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... table of Wykeham's domestic expenses; a thirteenth century Vulgate in manuscript; a "Briefe description of the Newe Founde Lande of Virginia," by Sir Walter Raleigh; and a pedigree of Henry VI., tracing his descent from Adam. The chief relic of Wykeham is a gold ring with a large sapphire in it. The Cloisters are 132 feet in length on each side, and the stone roofing is supported by rafters of Irish oak. The ground enclosed by the Cloisters was once used for ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... fancy passes away, which the young are carried along with, and the older feel refreshed by; there is still a sense of experience, and a pleasure in tracing the perspective from another point of sight, where what was once distant has become near at hand, the earnest of many a day-dream has been gained, and more than one ideal has been tried, and merits and demerits have ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... discernible; they are a, -a, 1/2b, -b, 2b, etc.; some of which cancel one another, while many others do not appear distinguishably, but merge in one sum; forming altogether a result, between which and the causes whereby it was produced there is often an insurmountable difficulty in tracing by observation any ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... some of the conversation, being occupied with my own passion. At any rate, when I next listened the two were deep in plans. Maps were spread beside them, and Laputa's delicate forefinger was tracing a route. I strained my ears, but could catch only a few names. Apparently they were to keep in the plains till they had crossed the Klein Labongo and the Letaba. I thought I caught the name of the ford of the latter; it sounded like Dupree's Drift. After that the talk became plainer, ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other,—a practice which has now passed into a proverb.[720-4] It was also a practice with him, when he had completed a work, to exhibit it to the view of the passers-by in his studio, while he himself, concealed behind the picture, would listen to the criticisms. . . . Under these ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... "I do not wish to stain my hand by tracing the order for my son's death. Let him wander from place to place, destitute of resources and assistance, having no companion but remorse, and no society but the tigers of the desert, less inhuman than himself. Assailed by want, tormented ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... an exact pattern of the throat or exterior of the peg-box (diagram 22). Next, as the veneer will not bend sufficiently, cut a piece of rather stout paper, and after laying it against the back of the scroll, a rough tracing can be made and cut to exactness by degrees, trying it against the model and correcting until satisfactory. As this part of an Italian violin is not cut so mechanically as many people imagine, another and perhaps quicker way, if means are to hand, is ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick

... To test the truth of Howells's words as applied to myself; and to describe a journey, both at home and abroad, which may possibly be enjoyed by the reader, the inconveniences of travel being lessened by incidentally tracing a love story to a strange but perhaps satisfactory conclusion; the whole leading to the evolution of a successful experiment, which in fragments is being tried in various ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... historically speaking, an old phenomenon, inseparable from the death of a religious dogma. It is the reaction of those superficial intellects which, incapable of taking a comprehensive view of the life of humanity, and tracing and deducing its essential characteristics from tradition, deny the religious ideal itself, instead of simply affirming the death of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... In tracing the history of our little town from its origin it has often been observed how important a part has been played in its fortunes by the river that flows through and partly encircles it. It is to the river that the town owes its ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New

... there cannot possibly be so much time disposed of in descriptive facts as there was in our former conversations concerning the rivers of the world, which are so numerous, and require so many minute particulars in tracing their courses, that they positively (although occupying a smaller portion of the globe,) take more time to sail over in our ship 'The Research,' than the boundless ocean, which occupies two thirds of our world; it will, under these circumstances, be advisable to illustrate our subject largely, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... the works were taken in hand for rubbing the stones smooth with wax, for carving the inscription, and tracing it with vermilion, but without entering into details on these matters too minutely, we will return to the two places, the Yu Huang temple and the Ta Mo monastery. The company of twelve young bonzes and twelve young Taoist priests had now moved out of the Garden of Broad Vista, and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... will, in that event, ensure the moral growth of existing societies before multiplying them. And the Government will make their promotion conditional, not upon the number of societies they have registered, but the moral success of the existing institutions. This will mean tracing the course of every pie lent to the members. Those responsible for the proper conduct of co-operative societies will see to it that the money advanced does not find its way into the toddy-seller's bill or into the pockets of the keepers of gambling ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi

... 29, 1712; at the age of forty-nine. The descendants of Nathaniel are now found in Norwich, Vt., and elsewhere; and those of Samuel in Sheffield, Mass., and elsewhere. But the later descendants of the other sons, except Samuel, Daniel and Nathaniel, and of the daughters, I have no means of tracing. They are scattered in Connecticut and widely in other states. During the lives of this second generation occurred King Phillip's war, which decimated the New England Colonies, and doubtless affected this family with others. Within their time also, Yale College was founded, and went into ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman

... at all in learning, who would not choose to be this mathematician rather than that tyrant? If we look into their methods of living and their employments, we shall find the mind of the one strengthened and improved with tracing the deductions of reason, amused with his own ingenuity, which is the one most delicious food of the mind; the thoughts of the other engaged in continual murders and injuries, in constant fears by night and by day. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... of the bumped heads and pinched fingers which frequently fell to her lot, when Hagar was too busy with the feeble child to notice her. The plaything of the whole house, she was greatly petted by the servants, who vied with each other in tracing points of resemblance between her and the Conways; while the grandmother prided herself particularly on the arched eyebrows and finely cut upper lip, which she said were sure marks of high blood, and never found in the lower ranks! With a scornful expression on her face, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... rude blast may in a moment consign to the embraces of the universal mother. I will not deny that my chief satisfaction springs from the fact, that in collecting these letters, and binding them together by a connecting narrative, I am engaged in the honorable task of tracing out some of the steps by which the new religion has risen to its present height of power. For whether true or false, neither friend nor foe, neither philosopher nor fool, can refuse to admit the regenerating ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... only sister, his grandfather's brothers and sisters, and even to the brothers and sisters of his great-grandfather. At that point the Haygarth family melted away into the impenetrable darkness of the past. They were no high and haughty race of soldiers and scholars, churchmen and lawyers, or the tracing of them would have been a much easier matter. Burke would have told of them. There would have been old country houses filled with portraits, and garrulous old housekeepers learned in the traditions of the past. There would have been mouldering tombs and tarnished brasses in quiet country ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... PAPER. It was the joy of Tom's existence to see his editions become first scarce, then VERY SCARCE, while the price augmented in proportion to the rarity. When he was not reading in his rooms he was taking long walks in the country, tracing Roman walls and roads, and exploring Woodstock Park for the remains of "the labyrinth," as he calls the Maze of Fair Rosamund. In these strolls he was sometimes accompanied by undergraduates, even gentlemen of noble family, "which gave cause to some to envy our happiness." ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... wife's mother was a descendant of a noble but anonymous family in the Vosges, whilst her maternal uncle was accustomed to attach to himself some local unpopularity by preferring for investigation a complicated sheet which set forth his genealogy, tracing his origin back to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various

... will notice in his earlier productions, vigorous and clear as their language always was, the occurrence of faults against which he afterwards most anxiously guarded himself. A much greater interest will undoubtedly be felt in tracing the date and development ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of attention, tracing the first simple idea to its remoter consequences, the philosophical genius owes many of its discoveries. It was one evening in the cathedral of Pisa that GALILEO observed the vibrations of a brass lustre pendent from the vaulted roof, which ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... slow movement of the glowing point. The Central Federated States of Europe were behind him; the point was tracing a course over the vast reaches of the patchwork map that meant the many democracies of Russia. This cruiser of Schwartzmann's was doing five hundred miles an hour—and the watching man cursed under his breath at the slow progress of the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... or so later, Margaret was coming down from the nursery. Merton had announced, as bedtime drew near, that he "felt a pain;" and Margaret had no difficulty in tracing it to Mrs. Peyton's careless indulgence. She stole down quietly to the cheerful back room where Frances and Elizabeth sat with their sewing, and begged for some simple remedy. Frances rose with alacrity. ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... of 1879 Dr Burton went abroad for the last time, for the purpose of tracing the course of Marlborough's campaigns. From his daily letters home a few passages ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... "As a means of tracing him, if he wished to inquire about him from any third person. That was the obvious reason. Well, after the murder I calculated that Beppo would probably hurry rather than delay his movements. He would fear that the police would read his secret, and so he hastened on before they should ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... were spent in the servants' quarters in the south-east corner of the outer apartments. One of our servants was Shyam, a dark chubby boy with curly locks, hailing from the District of Khulna. He would put me into a selected spot and, tracing a chalk line all round, warn me with solemn face and uplifted finger of the perils of transgressing this ring. Whether the threatened danger was material or spiritual I never fully understood, but a great fear used to possess me. I had read in the Ramayana of the tribulations of Sita ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... feeling. And this animal sentiment, educating the human hand and heart in her, had become a moral one, when, King Theseus leaving her in anger, visibly unkind, the child had crept to her side, and tracing with small fingers the wrinkled lines of her woebegone brow, carved there as if by a thousand years of sorrow, had sown between himself and her the seed ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... Applications to the Reprinting of Letterpress, the Reprinting of Engravings, the Multiplying of Ornamental Patterns, the successive Alterations of the same Design; Papyrography with Ink—Writing Circulars, Music, Oriental Characters, &c., Pen-Etching, Tracing Facsimiles of Engravings; Papyrography with Chalk—Printing in Colours, Printing Rubbings of Brasses, Drawing with Heel-ball, &c. &c. With illustrative Examples, by PHILIP ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various

... weapons. Here hath been recited their entry into the city and their stay there in disguise. Then the slaying by Bhima of the wicked Kichaka who, senseless with lust, had sought Draupadi; the appointment by prince Duryodhana of clever spies; and their despatch to all sides for tracing the Pandavas; the failure of these to discover the mighty sons of Pandu; the first seizure of Virata's kine by the Trigartas and the terrific battle that ensued; the capture of Virata by the enemy and his rescue by Bhimasena; ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... history—so enormously | | extended in recent years—the author surveys | | the waxing and waning of civilisation as | | evidenced in sculpture, painting, | | literature, mechanics, and wealth. In | | tracing the various forces at work in this | | fluctuation he arrives at most significant | | conclusions, notably in connection with race | | mixture and forms of government. | | | | "We know nothing that exhibits in so brief a ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet

... Justice, thus tracing crime to its sources, had no option but to issue a warrant for the arrest of the Marchioness de Bouilie; but it seems probable that it was not served owing to the strenuous efforts of the Count de Saint-Geran, who could not bring himself to ruin his sister, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Now I know who you are, I find no difficulty in tracing in your features the resemblance to your portrait in the family gallery, at the Nest. The eyes, too, cannot be altered without artificial brows, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... you perceive, in a cave. But I suppose you know so little how you came here that you would find some difficulty in tracing your way to us again?" This was spoken interrogatively, with ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... fatigue you," he returned, "by tracing the progress of my unfortunate admiration; will endeavour to be more brief, for I see you are already wearied." He stopt a moment, hoping for some little encouragement; but Cecilia, in no humour to give it, assumed an air of unconcern, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... before his death Adrian Borlsover developed, unknown to himself, the not uncommon power of automatic writing. Eustace made the discovery by accident. Adrian was sitting reading in bed, the forefinger of his left hand tracing the Braille characters, when his nephew noticed that a pencil the old man held in his right hand was moving slowly along the opposite page. He left his seat in the window and sat down beside the bed. The right hand continued to move, and now he could see plainly that they were letters ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... government by tracing the origin and development of a club or society of which you are a member, or with which ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... first part has indicated the general causes which bring all marriages to the crises which we are about to describe; and, in tracing the steps of this conjugal preamble, we have also pointed out the way in which the catastrophe is to be avoided, for we have pointed out the errors by which ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... tracing analogies between different institutions, in the capacity for seeing the bearing of obscure and neglected facts, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... believe that the universe has a Head, a Lord, a Ruler. It is a comfort to believe that we are not orphans, fatherless inhabitants of a Godless world. There is pleasure in admiration and reverence. There is pleasure in feelings of gratitude. There is a pleasure in tracing the wonders and beauties of creation to a living, loving Creator. It adds to the pleasure of science to believe, that behind the wonderful phenomena which we behold, there is a Great Unseen from whose all-loving heart they all proceed. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... something far different and far away; he thought the latter. He was right. Ellen at the moment had escaped from the company and the noisy sounds of the performer at her side; and while her eye was curiously tracing out the pattern of the carpet, her mind was resting itself in one of the verses she had been reading that same evening. Suddenly, and as it seemed, from no connection with anything in or out of her thoughts, there came to her mind the image of John as she had seen him ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... numerous gauges that faced me on the gleaming instrument board. There were dials with needlelike hands that registered various numbers; spots of color appeared in narrow slots close to a solar spectrum: a stream of graph-paper tape flowed slowly beneath a tracing-pen point and carried away a jiggly thin line of purple ink. In a moment Drayle was oblivious of everything but his records. I watched him copy the indicated figures, surround them with formulas, and solve mysterious problems with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... gaped, and lifted her hands; she had evidently recognized Jude's companion as the latter had recognized her. Next came two ladies, and after talking to the charwoman they also moved forward, and as Sue stood reaching upward, watched her hand tracing the letters, and critically regarded her person in relief against the white wall, till she grew so ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... The crew of a Portuguese trading-vessel with a genial narrator on board might conceivably be a much more successful transmitting-medium than a thousand praos full of brown warriors come to stay. Clearly the problem of analyzing and tracing the story-literature of the Christianized tribes differs only in degree from that connected with the Pagan tribes. In this volume I have treated the problem entirely from the former point of view, since there has been hitherto ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... language which they had held in 1688. They gently blamed the scruples of the nonconformists. It was undoubtedly a great weakness to imagine that there could be any sin in wearing a white robe, in tracing a cross, in kneeling at the rails of an altar. But the highest authority had given the plainest directions as to the manner in which such weakness was to be treated. The weak brother was not to be judged: he was not to be despised: believers who had stronger minds were commanded to soothe ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... leaned back and watched Kennedy closely without seeming to do so. "When I was in Italy last year," he replied at length, "I did a good deal of work in tracing up some Camorra suspects. I had a tip about some of them to look up their records—I needn't say where it came from, but it was a good one. Much of the evidence against some of those fellows who are being tried at Viterbo was ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... from I could not at first detect, but on a more careful inspection I found that it ran, a tiny thread, along a crack in the lava not more than a couple of inches wide, which, on tracing it back, I found we had driven over without noticing. Apparently the water came down from the "bubble" through a ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... first group descends the angel of death, swinging a scythe, and to her the unfortunate are stretching out their arms in supplication for an end to their sorrows. The second group, it will be seen, are tracing a path which leads to three open coffins in which lie the bodies of three princes in different stages of decay, while a monk on crutches—intended for S. Macarius—is pointing to them. The air is filled with angels and ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... station, shrubs and poplar sticks set out along the cement sidewalks, in an effort to disguise the rawness of the prairie pancake that the contractors had parcelled into lots. Isabelle found some difficulty in tracing her way along the ingeniously twisted avenues to the Johnston house. But finally she reached the two-story-and-attic wooden box, which was set in a little grove of maple trees. Two other houses were going up across the street, and a trench ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... accordance with the stern, unrelenting logic of events, having sown to the wind, might therefore have reaped the whirlwind. It is among the mysteries of Providence, that retributive justice, when visiting nations, often involves innocent victims,—but it is retributive justice still; and tracing up rightly the chain of causes and effects, it may be that the tragedies of Delhi and Lucknow are attributable, to say the least, as much to the avarice of the dominant as to the depravity of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... is," said Doctor Gordon, "and if the Lord made it, he did not altogether succeed, and I see no earthly way of tracing the New Jersey soil back to original sin ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... impossible to ridicule any longer. DR. MAITLAND has suggested the true course of thought upon the subject, and promised to lead us along it; but it is impossible at present to use anything that he has said, on account of its incompleteness. In tracing the subject through history, DR. MAITLAND would no doubt mention the "[Greek: Omphalopsuchoi], or Umbilicani," of the fourteenth century, whose practices make a page (609.) of Waddington's History of the Church read like a sketch ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various

... to be anomalies; thus, "My knife is of the worth of a shilling;" "—of the worth of him," &c. "He has been there for three times;" as we say, "I was unwell for three days, after I arrived;" or, "I was unwell three days." Thus it appears, that by tracing back, for a few centuries, what the merely modern English scholar supposes to be an anomaly, an ellipsis will frequently be discovered, which, when supplied, destroys ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... States of the Union? But if it be asked what the issue of the struggle is likely to be, it will readily be understood that we are here left to form a very vague surmise of the truth. The human mind may succeed in tracing a wide circle, as it were, which includes the course of future events; but within that circle a thousand various chances and circumstances may direct it in as many different ways; and in every picture of the future there is a dim spot, which the eye of the understanding ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... map, John?" he added; and John spread out on the platform where they stood his own rude tracing of the upper country which he had made by reference to the best government maps obtainable. Their uncle Dick, engineer of this new railroad and other frontier development enterprises, of course had a full supply ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... and look-out from morning till night, and from one day's end to the other. The spies that were thickly-set in all parts where there was a probability he might appear, could see nothing of Carlos! To-day he was reported here, to-morrow there; but on tracing these reports to their sources, it usually turned out that some ranchero with a black horse had been taken for him; and thus the troopers were led from place to place, and misled by false reports, until both horses ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... the whole party being plunged into the water. Thanks to the little breadth of the river at this place no one was drowned, Madame Godin being happily saved, after twice sinking, by her brothers. Placed now in a situation still more distressing than before, they collectively resolved on tracing the course of the river along its banks. How difficult an enterprise this was, you, Sir, are well aware, who know how thickly the banks of the rivers are beset with trees, underwood, herbage and lianas, and that it is often necessary to cut one's way. They returned to their hut, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... comparison between the two; for who ever heard of a gold-finder that had the impudence or folly to assert, from the ill success of his search, that there was no such thing as gold in the world? whereas the truth-finder, having raked out that jakes, his own mind, and being there capable of tracing no ray of divinity, nor anything virtuous or good, or lovely, or loving, very fairly, honestly, and logically concludes that no such things exist ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... fitted parts, each so necessary to the whole. But after the gold has been found—and that is the point of greatest interest—the story goes on and on to explain the cryptogram. This, no doubt, was to Poe the most interesting thing about the story, the tracing of the steps by which the scrap of parchment was deciphered and reasoned upon and made to yield up its secret. As to the time and place, the strange conduct and character of Legrand, the fears and superstitions of Jupiter, and ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... of distinguishing sounds, we should sit down in a meadow, some hot midsummer day, and listen to the subdued running murmur of the myriads of insects. Many are very distinct to our ears and we have little trouble in tracing them to their source. Such are crickets and grasshoppers, which fiddle and rasp their roughened hind legs against their wings. Some butterflies have the power of making a sharp crackling sound by means of hooks on the wings. The katydid, so annoying to some in its persistent ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... bring the good news to his family, he had followed the example set by some French merchants in Havana, and embarked with them on a Spanish vessel with a cargo for Bordeaux. And now, grown tired of evil forebodings, his fancy was tracing out for him the most delicious pictures of past happiness. In that far-off brown line of land he seemed to see his wife and children. He sat in his place by the fireside; they were crowding about him; he felt their caresses. Moina ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... years. Mr. Darwin's DESCENT OF MAN has been in print five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised by it was still raging in pulpits and periodicals. In tracing the genesis of the human race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had left Adam out altogether. We had monkeys, and "missing links," and plenty of other kinds of ancestors, but no Adam. Jesting with Mr. Beecher and other friends in Elmira, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... kinematic synthesis is presently directed toward the design of linkages and because linkages provide a convenient thread for a narrative that would have become unnecessarily complex if detailed treatment of gears and cams had been included. I have brought the narrative down to the present by tracing kinematics as taught in American engineering schools, closing with brief mention of the scholarly activity in kinematics in this country since 1950. An annotated list of additional references is appended as an encouragement to further work in ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson

... to grow apace, and it seemed to the fond mother that he became dearer to her every day. He was the sole light and joy of her life, and in him were bound up all her hopes for the future. Of late she had ceased to scan his features in the hope of tracing there some resemblance of his absent father. Since her visit to Amity street, that fond illusion had wholly departed, never to return. She had ceased even to speak to him about his other parent, and had begun to regard herself in the light of an actual widow. ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... join. Blackstone bade his Muse a long adieu before he turned to wrangling courts and stubborn law; and our young lawyer intended to do the same (for poetry was starvation in America seventy years ago), but habit and nature were too strong for him. There is no difficulty in tracing the succession of his poems, and in a few instances the places where they were written, or with which they concerned themselves. "Thanatopsis," for example, was followed by "The Yellow Violet," which was followed by the "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," and ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... of surprise was real. He wasn't surprised. But he was annoyed with himself for expecting something so impossible as the Sylva tracing the fleet through an overdrive voyage of days to a most unlikely ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... the disposal of a portion of the building material; which observation, with certain deductions following thereon, had led to the detection and arrest of the criminal. From that time on he had been more and more drawn to the fascination of tracing events to their causes, when these appeared connected with deeds of violence and fraud, till of late years he had completely dropped the study of the carrying powers of wood and stone for the more interesting lessons to be derived from the contemplation of the strange vagaries ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... these layers of quartz almost certainly had never been separately deposited, for they were absolutely continuous with the numerous intersecting veins of quartz. I have never had an opportunity of tracing for any distance, along the line both of strike and of dip, the so-called beds in the metamorphic schists, but I strongly suspect that they would not be found to extend with the same character, very far in the line either of their dip or strike. Hence I am led to believe, that most of the so-called ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... succeed by such knowledge of Brahma in paying off the debts (thou speakest of) to the gods (the Rishis, and the Pitris) represented to be so very fond of libations poured in sacrifices.[1244] The very gods become stupefied in tracing the track of that trackless person who constitutes himself the soul of all creatures and who looks upon all creatures with an equal eye. Through instructions received from the preceptor one knows that which dwells within this frame to be of a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... among Pacific tribes, escorted Vancouver's boats northward the second week in June through the labyrinthine passageways of cypress-grown islets to Burrard Inlet. To Peter Puget was assigned the work of coasting the mainland side and tracing every inlet to its head waters. Johnstone went ahead in a small boat to reconnoitre the way out of the Pacific. On both sides the shores now rose in beetling precipice and steep mountains, down which foamed cataracts setting the echo of myriad bells tinkling ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... gave his vote for condemnation by tracing a line horizontally across a waxed tablet. This was one method in use; another was by means of pebbles placed in one or other ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... tracing him if he wished to inquire about him from any third person. That was the obvious reason. Well, after the murder I calculated that Beppo would probably hurry rather than delay his movements. He would fear ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... their names in pencil on these hearts," pursued Ellen mischievously; "then they're to be done in tracing stitch in red cotton. In the middle of the quilt is to be a big white square, with a large red heart in it; that's supposed to be Wesley Elliot's. It's to have his monogram in stuffed letters, in ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... old sovereigns, Alpenstock in hand, and short, stocky rifles slung over the shoulder, go toiling up and down the mountains, along the edges of great precipices, tracing their steps along paths that to the uninitiated would seem to afford no foothold to any living thing, save a goat or a chamois. Sometimes they are overtaken by snowstorms while up in the mountains, and are unable to see their way, or to move either backwards or ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... arched roof till it dies exhausted. I seem to have heard of a writer who likened man's life to a bird passing just once only, on some winter night, from window to window, across a cheerfully-lighted hall. The bird, taken captive by the ill-luck of a moment, re-tracing its issueless circle till it expires within the close vaulting of that great stone church:—human life may be like ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... civilization follows a simple trail, well defined beyond dispute. Viewed in retrospect it begins in a hazy thread stretching from Assyria into Egypt, from Egypt into Greece, from Greece to Rome—widening throughout Italy and Spain, then centering in Venice, and tracing clear and deep to Amsterdam—widening again into Germany and across to England, thence ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... up to consideration of these problems by tracing some features of our industrial development even though they may be trite to most of you. One underlying cause of these discontents is that with the growth of large plants there has been a loss of personal contact between ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... needs to know more. She needs to know that the machine upon which she is looking did not merely happen, but that it has a history as fascinating as any romance if only she cause it to give forth a revelation of itself. She may find in tracing the evolution of the plow that the original was the forefinger of some cave man, in the remote past. For a certainty, she will find, lurking in some machine, in some form, the multiplication table, and this fact will form an interesting nexus ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... him before me in a strong light. He was short, almost fat, and in his thin, whitish hair there was a hint at coming baldness. The close attention that he had been compelled to give practical things, the sawing of bones, the tracing of nerves, the undoing of man's machinery, had given him the cynical look of a hard materialist. But when he stepped back to take the chair which Guinea had brought I saw that he moved easily, that he was cool and knew well how ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... discussion, the Four playing the part of listeners merely. Formality was dispensed with. During a debate upon the southern boundary of Austria, President Wilson might have been seen on all fours, kneeling on the floor and tracing out the suggested frontier on a huge map, while other peace commissioners and experts surrounded him, also on their hands and knees. Hours of labor were long. There was, certainly, much discussion that hinged upon selfish nationalist interests, but ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... of two trains of ants, moving in opposite directions; one train empty-handed, the other laden with the mangled remains of insects, chiefly larvae and pupae of other ants. I had no difficulty in tracing the line to the spot from which they were conveying their booty: this was a low thicket; the Ecitons were moving rapidly about a heap of dead leaves; but as the short tropical twilight was deepening rapidly, and I had no wish to be benighted on the lonely campos, I deferred further examination ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... himself of observation he dressed as rapidly as possible, trying the while to devise some means of tracing Vivaldi. But the longer he pondered the attempt the more plainly he saw its futility. Vivaldi, doubtless from motives of prudence, had not named the friend with whom he and Fulvia were to take shelter; nor did Odo even ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... of origin of the Caribs is disputed, some authorities tracing them to Guiana, others to Venezuela, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... between the succession of ideas in history and the natural order of philosophy is hardly true even of the beginnings of thought. And in later systems forms of thought are too numerous and complex to admit of our tracing in them a regular succession. They seem also to be in part reflections of the past, and it is difficult to separate in them what is original and what is borrowed. Doubtless they have a relation to one another—the transition from Descartes to Spinoza or from Locke to Berkeley is ...
— Sophist • Plato

... brows dropped. On the table painfully he pored as though Tracing, in the stains and streaks there, thoughts encrusted long ago. When he spoke 'twas like a lawyer reading word by word some will, Some blind jungle of a statement,—beating on and on until Out there leaps fierce ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... himself but admitted everything, and so was sent to prison. The woman gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, who were nurtured in secret and made to believe that their father was dead no difficult matter, since at a tender age they saw their mother die, and they gave little thought to tracing genealogies. As our maternal grandfather was rich our childhood passed happily. My sister and I were brought up together, loving one another as only twins can love when they have no other affections. When quite young I was sent to study in the Jesuit College, and my sister, in order ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... it for some way, before learning the fact. Then they would turn about and hunt until they found it again. The fact that at that point it entered the timber must cause another delay, where the difficulty of tracing the whites would be greatly increased. By the time they came back again to the open plain, the fall of snow was likely to render further pursuit ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis

... On tracing the history of this property as far back as existing records permit, it appears that "the High Meadow Estate," although naturally included in the district constituting the Crown property of the Forest, had been at remote period detached from it ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... the East was completed. As this was the last undisputed general council, it may be taken as marking the termination of the history of the ancient Church. In following the further course of the Western Church there is no longer need of a detailed tracing of the history of the Eastern Church, which ceased to be a determining factor in the religious life of the West. The two parts of Christendom come in contact from time to time, but without formal schism they have ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... as vague in direction as that of thistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it had been night instead of morning, that she might at least have borne her misery without the possibility of being seen. Tracing mile after mile along between the dying ferns and the wet white spiders' webs, she at length turned her steps towards her grandfather's house. She found the front door closed and locked. Mechanically she went round to the end where ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... the Old Lawyer. "It is A 1. Your father, who died before you were born, quite a little time before, belonged to the very highest peerage of Wales. You are descended directly from Claer-ap-Claer, who murdered Owen Glendower. Your mother we are still tracing up. But we have already connected her with Floyd-ap-Floyd, who murdered ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... invented for them more various and expressive masks, and raised their stature to the heroic size by providing them with thick-soled cothurni or buskins. AEschylus excels in representing the superhuman, in depicting demigods and heroes, and in tracing the irresistible march of fate. His style resembles the ideas which it clothes: it is bold, sublime, and full of gorgeous imagery, but sometimes ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... in seven of our directorates. You know how Consolidated has sought to avoid the appearance of too narrow a domination. You know, too, that we have avoided directors who were obviously pure dummies. For several weeks I have been tracing out the holdings in Coal and Ore stock. Hamilton Burton with his following looms too large. Left to his own devices, he may ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... known in the world, so these last need not look to be permanent. Of a tendency to this state of feeling Milton had given evidences from early youth; but I do not think I am wrong in fixing on the year 1643 as the time when it became chronic, nor in tracing the sudden enlargement of it then beyond its former bounds to the wrench in his life caused by his unhappy marriage. At all events, henceforward throughout his career we shall see the continuous action of this now avowed Miltonism among others. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... very straight with a startled movement. Oh, to think of it! That she should have forgotten Sir Guy! To have sought Will Shakespeare for the sole purpose of tracing her threatened lover—and then to forget him for ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... came the soft answer, and reaching out, the Indian gently turned the engineer so that the latter stood with his back squarely to the river. Taking the Seer's right hand and holding it outstretched with open palm upward in one of his own and tracing with the other dark-skinned finger, as one might trace on a relief map, he continued in Spanish, as he drew his finger carefully along the white man's thumb from the wrist: "Here are the mountains that shut out the country by the Big Sea where is San Felipe. I go there once, long time ago. My people ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... Care and Use, by David Buffum. Mr. Buffum takes up the common, every-day problems of the ordinary horse-users, such as feeding, shoeing, simple home remedies, breaking and the cure for various equine vices. An important chapter is that tracing the influx of Arabian blood into the English and American horses and its value and limitations. A distinctly sensible book for the sensible man who wishes to know how he can improve his horses and his horsemanship at ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... not laugh in thus seeing an artless countryman tracing himself through the simple modifications of his life; remember that you have required it, therefore with candour, though with diffidence, I endeavour to follow the thread of my feelings, but I cannot tell you all. Often when I plough my ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... habitations of the Esquimaux, who visit Churchill are built of snow, and judging from one constructed by Augustus to-day, they are very comfortable dwellings. Having selected a spot on the river, where the snow was about two feet deep, and sufficiently compact, he commenced by tracing out a circle twelve feet in diameter. The snow in the interior of the circle was next divided with a broad knife, having a long handle, into slabs three feet long, six inches thick, and two feet deep, being the thickness of the layer of snow. These slabs were tenacious enough ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin



Words linked to "Tracing" :   uncovering, trace, discovery, drafting, draftsmanship, tracing routine, find, drawing, tracing paper



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com