Word.ws English Dictionary

leave no trace

leave no trace verb: to follow certain outdoor ethical guidelines while camping, etc., so thoroughly that it would appear as though one had never previously been there, for the sake of nature conservation.

Verb

leave no trace (third-person singular simple present leaves no trace, present participle leaving no trace, simple past and past participle left no trace)

  1. To follow certain outdoor ethical guidelines while camping, etc., so thoroughly that it would appear as though one had never previously been there, for the sake of nature conservation.
    • Camping in a pristine area is the ultimate Leave No Trace challenge because it is imperative that you literally leave no trace—and that is very hard to do.2003, Annette McGivney, Leave No Trace: A Guide to the New Wilderness Ethic, The Mountaineers Books, →ISBN, page 43
    • These fences catch any MOOP (“matter out of place”) that blows out of peoples' camps, where it can be harvested and packed out—leave no trace—and all that.2013, Cory Doctorow, Homeland, Tor Books, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    LNT
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see leave, no, trace.

Synonyms of leave no trace

Forms of leave no trace

third-person singular presentleaves no trace
present participleleaving no trace
past participleleft no trace
pastleft no trace

Origin of leave no trace

Coined around the 1960s.

Questions about leave no trace

What does leave no trace mean?
Leave no trace means to follow certain outdoor ethical guidelines while camping, etc., so thoroughly that it would appear as though one had never previously been there, for the sake of nature conservation.
What part of speech is leave no trace?
Leave no trace is a verb.
What is the past tense of leave no trace?
The past tense of leave no trace is left no trace.

Words near leave no trace in the dictionary

  1. leave little to the imagination
  2. leave me alone
  3. leave much to be desired
  4. leave no crumbs
  5. leave no stone unturned
  6. leave no trace
  7. leave nothing in the tank
  8. leave of absence
  9. leave off
  10. leave on
  11. leave on the table

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: leave no trace (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “leave no trace.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/leave_no_trace. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.