tracciare

Forms

tracciare (first-person singular present tràccio, first-person singular past historic tracciài, past participle tracciàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *tractiāre (“to draw, pull”), formed on tractus, the past participle of trahō (“to pull, drag”), and used in place of the classical verb.^[2][3][4][1] GRADIT and Zingarelli call it an intensive of the Latin verb.^[4][5]

The verb belongs to western Romance: French tracer, Occitan trasar “to pierce”, Catalan trassar, Spanish trazar and Portuguese traçar.^[3][6][7] The cluster /kti̯/ became the /tt͡ʃ/ of ⟨cci⟩ here, while in drizzare the same cluster gave ⟨zz⟩.^[8]

In the Middle Ages the verb took the sense “to go towards a place”, and in hunting “to follow the tracks of game”; from there it came to mean “to follow a line” and “to draw one”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is a document from Monte Amiata of 1373, with the sense “to follow a trail”.^[2][3] DEI has the hunting sense “to follow the hare's track” from the 13th century at Padua, and Zingarelli dates the verb to the 13th century.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian and up to the Renaissance the verb belonged to hunting: Pulci's Morgante has ognun vuol questa lepre, ognun la traccia “everyone wants this hare, everyone tracks it”.^[9][6] From the 14th century (the Livio volgarizzato) it also meant “to plot, hatch”, a sense GDLI treats as a separate entry, perhaps an extension of the first.^[10][9][6]

The modern senses “to draw” and “to outline” came in the early 19th century: Bernardoni has both in 1812, and purists objected to them (Lissoni in 1831, Ugolini in 1855, who wrote that the word “cannot be used”).^[2] Tracciare una strada, to mark out the course of a road, is recorded in 1824, and the general “to mark a trace for building something” in Petrocchi (1891).^[2] Recent dictionaries add tracking the digital traces of an Internet user, following the path of a product or a parcel, and contact tracing in epidemics.^[11][1]

Timeline

• 1373 – A document from Monte Amiata uses tracciare “to follow a trail”.^[2][3]
• 14th century – The Livio volgarizzato uses it for “to plot, hatch”.^[6][10]
• 1812 – Bernardoni records the senses “to draw” and “to outline”.^[2]
• 1824 – Bianchini records tracciare una strada, to mark out a road.^[2]
• 1831 – Lissoni rejects the sense “to draw”.^[2]
• 1891 – Petrocchi records the sense “to mark a trace for building something”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To leave a trace or mark, especially a line: Le ruote del trattore hanno tracciato due solchi nel fango.^[4][11][12]
2. To mark out a route or course on the ground or on a map; to open a path for the first time: tracciare la rotta, to plot a ship's course.^[4][11][13]
3. To draw; to make a preparatory drawing of a structure: tracciare un cerchio con il compasso.^[4][12][14]
4. (figurative) To outline, describe in broad strokes: Il relatore ha tracciato un bilancio dell'anno.^[4][12][14]
5. To track the origin and stages of a product, a payment or a consignment;^[11][1] (computing) to follow the traces of an Internet user.^[11][1]
6. (medicine) tracciare i contatti, to trace the contacts of an infected person.^[11]
7. (obsolete) To follow the tracks of someone or something.^[4][5][13]
8. (obsolete) To plot, hatch.^[4][5]

Word family

• traccia
• tracciato
• tracciante
• tracciamento
• tracciatore
• tracciatura
• rintracciare
• sottotraccia
• tracciabile
• tracciatrice
• tracciatoio

Related words

• trarre
• trattare
• tratto
• French tracer

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 448
9. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana