Library / English Dictionary

RETRACE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Reassemble mentally

Example:

reconstruct the events of 20 years ago

Synonyms:

construct; reconstruct; retrace

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "retrace" is one way to...):

conjecture; hypothecate; hypothesise; hypothesize; speculate; suppose; theorise; theorize (to believe especially on uncertain or tentative grounds)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "retrace"):

etymologise; etymologize (construct the history of words)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Sense 2

Meaning:

To go back over again

Example:

trace your path

Synonyms:

retrace; trace

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "retrace" is one way to...):

return (go or come back to place, condition, or activity where one has been before)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, and once more retraced my steps.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of distress of mind through which I passed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As the day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed in the northwest (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were six hours long), the young bulls retraced their steps more and more reluctantly to the aid of their beset leader.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Excepting the moments of peculiar delight, which any marked or unlooked-for instance of Edmund's consideration of her in the last few months had excited, Fanny had never known so much felicity in her life, as in this unchecked, equal, fearless intercourse with the brother and friend who was opening all his heart to her, telling her all his hopes and fears, plans, and solicitudes respecting that long thought of, dearly earned, and justly valued blessing of promotion; who could give her direct and minute information of the father and mother, brothers and sisters, of whom she very seldom heard; who was interested in all the comforts and all the little hardships of her home at Mansfield; ready to think of every member of that home as she directed, or differing only by a less scrupulous opinion, and more noisy abuse of their aunt Norris, and with whom (perhaps the dearest indulgence of the whole) all the evil and good of their earliest years could be gone over again, and every former united pain and pleasure retraced with the fondest recollection.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)