Word.ws English Dictionary

track

/ˈtɹæk/

track noun: a mark left by something that has passed along. Also the ellipsis of caterpillar track.

track: a mark left by something that has passed along
Image: Famartin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

track (plural tracks)

  1. A mark left by something that has passed along.
    • Follow the track of the ship.
    • Can you see any tracks in the snow?
    Synonyms:
    trace, trail, wake
  2. A mark or impression left by the foot, either of man or animal.
    • The fox tracks were still visible in the snow.
  3. The entire lower surface of the foot; said of birds, etc.
  4. A road or other similar beaten path.
    • Follow the track for a hundred metres.
    Synonyms:
    path, road, way
  5. Physical course; way.
    • Astronomers predicted the track of the comet.
    Synonyms:
    course, path, trajectory, way
  6. A path or course laid out for a race, for exercise, etc.
    • The athletes ran round the track.
    • The going is good on the track.
    Synonyms:
    course, racetrack
  7. The direction and progress of someone or something; path.
    • You cannot simply “get” your child back on track; you and others can only help your child with that task.2009, Kenneth H. Talan, Help Your Child Or Teen Get Back on Track, →ISBN
    • My track record was enough proof that I couldn't use women for medicinal purposes, and even my attempts at casual relationships were not adequate enough to even temporarily release the poisons inside me.2010, Randall Lee, Memoirs to My Women, →ISBN, page 242
  8. The way or rails along which a train moves.
    • They briefly closed the railway to remove debris found on the track.
  9. A tract or area, such as of land.
    Synonyms:
    area, parcel, region, tract
  10. (slang) The street, as a prostitute's place of work.
    • A real pimp is a gentleman, but these are pimps in gorilla suits. They hang around pimps, they have hoes on the track working for them, they may even look like pimps, but they are straight simps.2012, Pimpin' Ken, PIMPOLOGY: The 48 Laws of the Game, page 11
    • After putting Tonya Down on the track, we headed to this club called the Players Club.2012, Paul D. Jones, Twilight Nights: The Trials and Tribulations of the Game, page 130
  11. Awareness of something, especially when arising from close monitoring.
    • You will need to keep track of meetings with your lawyer and court deadlines.2006, James J. Gross, Michael F. Callahan, Money and Divorce: The First 90 Days and After, →ISBN, page 24
    • We have to formulate what we want, be so concentrated on it, so focused on it, and so aware of it that we lose track of ourselves, we lose track of time, we lose track of our identity.2012, Steven Gurgevich, Joy Gurgevich, The Self-Hypnosis Diet, →ISBN
  12. The distance between two opposite wheels on a same axletree.
    Synonyms:
    track width
Show 8 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. The pitch.
    Synonyms:
    ground, pitch
  2. Sound stored on a record.
    Synonyms:
    recording
  3. The physical track on a record.
    Synonyms:
    groove
  4. A song or other relatively short piece of music, on a record, separated from others by a short silence.
    • My favourite track on the album is "Sunshine".
  5. A circular (never-ending) data storage unit on a side of magnetic or optical disk, divided into sectors.
  6. (uncountable) The racing events of track and field; track and field in general.
    • I'm going to try out for track next week.
    • The University of Virginia belongs to the Atlantic Coast Conference and competes interscholastically in basketball, baseball, crew, cross country, fencing, football, golf, indoor track, lacrosse, polo, soccer, swimming, tennis, track, and wrestling.1973, University of Virginia Undergraduate Record
  7. A themed set of talks within a conference.
    • This year's third annual Women's Institute will include two tracks—on health and organizational issues—because of the overwhelming response and demand for more workshops last year.1992 February 2, Carrie Wofford, “Fifth National Black Gay Conference”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 28, page 1
  8. (Philippines) A specialization in senior high school. Some tracks consist of strands.

Verb

track (third-person singular simple present tracks, present participle tracking, simple past and past participle tracked)

  1. (transitive) To observe the (measured) state of a person or object over time.
    • We will track the raven population over the next six months.
    • Your sleep score is consistently high, you're tracking macros like it's your job, and you've finally got your VO2 max and heart rate variability dialed in.2026, Ginny Graves, “The Most Important Health Metric You're Not Tracking”, in Men's Health, volume 41, number 2, page 18
  2. (transitive) To monitor the movement of a person or object.
    • Agent Miles has been tracking the terrorist since Madrid.
    • I always had a suspicion that Calico, with his blend of simple faith and gipsy blood, had violated a temple, or looted a shrine, to save his son's life, and that the guardians of the relic tracked him and revenged the outrage.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    follow
  3. (transitive) To match the movement or change of a person or object.
    • My height tracks my father's at my age, so I might end up as tall as him.
  4. (intransitive, transitive) To travel so that a moving object remains in shot.
    • The camera tracked the ball even as the field of play moved back and forth, keeping the action in shot the entire time.
  5. (intransitive) To move.
    • The hurricane tracked further west than expected.
  6. (transitive) To traverse; to move across.
    • I've swept o'er the mountain, the forest and fell, / I've played on the rock where the wild chamois dwell; / I have tracked the desert so dreary and rude, / Through the pathless depths of its solitude; […]1837, Elizabeth Parker, Popular Poems. Selected by E. P., page 228
  7. (transitive) To tow.
  8. (intransitive) To exhibit good cognitive function.
    • Is the patient tracking? Does he know where he is?
    • Bess already knew about the painkillers and alcohol not mixing well.... "I wasn't tracking very well."2004, Catherine Anderson, Blue Skies, Penguin, →ISBN, page 39
  9. (transitive) To follow the tracks of.
    • My uncle spent all day tracking the deer, whose hoofprints were clear in the mud.
  10. (transitive) To discover the location of a person or object by following traces.
    • I tracked Joe to his friend's bedroom, where he had spent the night.
    • "She could be at any hospital...she could be ill. It's not clear whether she has fled," he told reporters. "Yingluck has many homes and many cars. It is difficult to track her."2017 August 25, Aukkarapon Niyomyat & Panarat Thepgumpanat, "Thai junta seeks Yingluck's arrest as former PM skips court verdict", in reuters.com, Reuters
  11. (transitive) To make tracks on or to leave in the form of tracks.
    • In winter, my cat tracks mud all over the house.
  12. (intransitive, transitive) To create a musical recording (a track).
    • Lil Kyle is gonna track with that DJ next week.
    1. (intransitive, transitive) To create music using tracker software.
      • At the time, tracking chiptunes (i.e. using trackers) was the fundamental method of chipmusic-making.2018, Dafni Tragaki, Made in Greece: Studies in Popular Music
  13. (colloquial, intransitive) To make sense; to be consistent with known information
    • Vitron isn't hiding anything. The oil is there, the books are open, everything tracks.1988, “The Rifle”, in Dynasty, season 8, episode 15
    • Before he took off, our guy went online... to transfer all his personal accounts into his checking account. CDs, money market funds, everything. That tracks. According to Nick, he was trying to sell the dry cleaners.2002, “Midnight Sun”, in Without a Trace, season 1, episode 10
  14. To separate into educational tracks, each of which teaches to a different level of ability.
    • Most working class kids are purposely "tracked" through schools, kept uninformed about scholarships and remedial education/vocation programs and shepherded into dead-end jobs.1990 February 4, Leonard Tirado, “Privatized 'Recovery' Versus Collective Action”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 29, page 19

Also used as

track is also the ellipsis of caterpillar track.

track is also the clipping of trackshoe.

track meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Arabic and Malay

track in Hindi

permanent way; the rails
सड़क saṛak
mark left by something that has passed along
चिह्न cihna
mark or impression left by the foot
पदचिह्न padcihna
beaten path
पगडंडी pagḍaṇḍī

track in Urdu

course; way
باٹ bāṭ

track in Arabic

mark left by something that has passed along
أَثَر ʔaṯar
path or course laid out for a race or exercise
مِضْمَار miḍmār

track in Malay

permanent way; the rails
jalan, landasan
mark left by something that has passed along
jejak
mark or impression left by the foot
jejak
beaten path
jalan
More languagesFewer languages
track in Thai
รอย rɔɔi, ทาง taang, ลู่ lûu
track in Vietnamese
dấu, vết, rãnh

Examples of track in a sentence

  • Cooke was trying a trotter on the track.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
  • Vlad says there is an American drone the Russians can't track.2022 May 5, Erin Burnett, 3:37 from the start, in See how gamers are outwitting and helping to kill Russian soldiers, CNN, archived from...

All 40 example sentences with track

Synonyms of track

24 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of track

Forms of track

Noun
pluraltracks
Verb
third-person singular presenttracks
present participletracking
past participletracked
pasttracked

Past tense of track: tracked

Plural of track: tracks

Origin of track

From Middle English trak, tracke, from Old French trac (“track of horses, trail, trace”), of uncertain origin. Likely from a Germanic source, either Old Norse traðk ("a track; path; trodden spot"; > Icelandic traðk (“a track; path; tread”), Faroese traðk (“track; tracks”), Norwegian tråkke (“to trample”)) or from Middle Dutch trec, *trac, treck ("line, row, series"; > Dutch trek (“a draft; feature; trait; groove; expedition”)), German Low German Treck (“a draught; movement; passage; flow”). See tread, trek.

Words formed from track

Phrases with track

94 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with track

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about track

What does track mean?
Track means a mark left by something that has passed along.
What is track in Hindi?
Track in Hindi is सड़क (saṛak), पथ (path), चिह्न (cihna). See Track meaning in Hindi.
How do you use track in a sentence?
Cooke was trying a trotter on the track.
What part of speech is track?
Track can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce track?
Track is pronounced /ˈtɹæk/.
What is the plural of track?
The plural of track is tracks.

Words near track in the dictionary

  1. tracing papers
  2. tracingly
  3. tracings
  4. Tracinski
  5. Tracinskis
  6. track
  7. track and bowl system
  8. track and bowl systems
  9. track and field
  10. track and trace
  11. track bed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: track (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-track.ogg, En-au-track.ogg.

Cite this entry: “track.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/track. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.