Track

How to spell track

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce track

What does track mean?

1. nounA path, trail, or set of marks left by something that has passed.
2. verbTo follow the movement or progress of someone or something.
3. nounA single recorded song or piece of music on an album or playlist.

Track in a sentence

• noun

  The muddy track led straight to the back gate.

• verb

  The app can track your parcel from the warehouse to your door.

• noun

  The final track on the album is a quiet acoustic number.

• noun

  A narrow track ran across the snow near the cabin.

• verb

  Investigators tried to track the missing funds through several accounts.

• noun

  She added one more track to the road-trip playlist.

Where does track come from?

Language of origin: French

Track came into English in the late 1400s from the Old French word 'trac', meaning a trail or the marks left by a passing person, animal, or vehicle. That French word is generally thought to have Germanic roots, related to words in Low German and Dutch for treading or trampling, the idea being the imprint pressed into the ground by feet. From the literal sense of footprints and ruts, the meaning broadened to a beaten path, then to any prepared course such as a railway line or a running track. The figurative senses, like keeping track of something or being on the right track, grew naturally from the image of following a visible trail. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, with the familiar 'ck' ending that English uses after a short vowel.

How the word is built

• track (single root; from Old French/Germanic 'trac', a trail or trace)