[f. TRACE v.1 + -ER1.] One who or that which traces.
1. One who follows the footprints or track of anything; one who tracks, investigates, or searches out; spec. one whose business is the tracing of missing persons, property, parcels, letters, etc.
1552. Huloet, Tracer, uestigiator.
1611. Florio, Rintracciatore, a tracer. Also a sifter out of secrets, a narrow searcher.
1627. Hakewill, Apol., III. i. § 5. 152. Plyny … a diligent and curious tracer of the prints of Natures footsteps.
1629. H. Burton, Truth’s Triumph, 210. The timorous … hare … to deceiue her pursuers or tracers, makes many doubles.
1724. Moffet, Hesperi-neso-gr. (1755), 4. To be performed by Some tracer of antiquity.
1866. Intell. Observ., No. 56. 99. Some deep-thinking tracer of structural relations.
1888. Sci. Amer., 6 Oct., 217/1. Nearly all the great [rail] roads employ a corps of what are known as ‘lost car searchers’ or ‘tracers.’
1902. Daily Chron., 18 June, 10/7. Furniture (Hire).—Wanted immediately smart man as collector and tracer; must have good knowledge of the hire trade. Ibid. (1904), 22 Aug., 4/5. The various postal organisations of sorters, telegraphists, postmen, linemen, tracers, &c.
2. A thing used in tracing; spec. a. Anat. A slender probe used in tracing the course of a nerve or vessel. b. In U.S. railway or postal usage, An inquiry form forwarded from point to point on which the successive movements of a missing car, parcel, or article have to be recorded.
1882. Wilder & Gage, Anat. Technol., 72. The tracer is apparently similar to the ‘seeker’ of the English anatomists.
1899. Syd. Soc. Lex., Tracer, an instrument used in dissection for isolating nerves or vessels by teasing.
1899. Westm. Gaz., 17 June, 7/2. The ‘tracer’ had chased the ore into the master-mechanic’s possession.
3. gen. One who or that which traces lines or makes tracings; spec.
a. Mil. At a siege, one who traces parallels; a member of a tracing party. b. One whose work it is to trace copies of drawings or plans. c. One whose business is the tracing of patterns for embroidery. d. A tool for marking out designs or patterns; also, a chasing or engraving tool. e. A stylus for tracing on copying paper; also, the writing instrument of a pantograph or of a self-recording machine. f. A mechanical contrivance for making tracings on a larger or smaller scale. g. Ice-cutting: see quot. 1884.
[1541. Aberdeen Regr. (1844), I. 176. Item, ane traschor, ane stuffin sclyise.]
c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Art, II. 29. With a little pointed tracer or burnisher go over your strokes which you drew upon the oiled paper, and you shall have the same very neatly and exactly drawn upon the white paper.
1799. G. Smith, Laboratory, II. 37. Trace the out-line with a brass bodkin, or a tracer, made on purpose, of a piece of wire, of iron or brass.
1812. Shelley, in Hogg, Life (1858), II. 150. The tracers of a circle.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 317. The frame carrying the dividing-point or tracer, is made to slide on the frame which carries the endless-screw to any distance.
1844. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., VII. 187/1. A solid cone revolving on its axis, during the perpendicular descent of a tracer.
1852. Trans. Soc. Arts, LVI. 134. The cutters and tracers used together should be of the same size.
1859. F. A. Griffiths, Artill. Man. (1862), 250. Tracers [of a siege-battery]—1 non-commissioned officer, and 2 privates.
1878. G. B. Prescott, Sp. Telephone (1879), 297. The lower diagram is what the tracer wrote when the stanza was repeated.
1884. Cassell’s Fam. Mag., Feb., 188/1. There are … tracers, or hand-ploughs, to mark out the areas to be cut by grooves [in ice].
1890. W. J. Gordon, Foundry, 174. At last the film of putty with which the flat plate was spread to show the tracer’s progress is scored along every line. The roller is finished.
1908. Daily Chron., 12 June, 9/6. Tracer for embroidery, female; also cutters wanted.
1911. Webster, Tracer,… any of several chasing tools for ornamenting in metal, esp. for making and finishing corners, borders, and the like.
