The act of following the outline or path of something by drawing over it, or following something to find out where it comes from or where it's going.
From Old French 'tracier,' possibly from Vulgar Latin 'tractiare' (from 'tractus,' meaning 'drawn' or 'pulled'). Used since medieval times for copying artwork, then expanded to mean following paths, origins, or genealogies.
Medieval monks used tracing techniques to copy manuscripts and pass them forward—and modern historians trace those copies to figure out which versions are oldest and most accurate, making tracing one of the core tools of detective work, both artistic and historical.
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