trace vs trail

trace

verb
  • To follow the trail of. 

  • To follow the execution of the program by making it to stop after every instruction, or by making it print a message after every step. 

  • To draw or sketch lightly or with care. 

  • To follow the history of. 

  • To copy onto a sheet of paper superimposed over the original, by drawing over its lines. 

noun
  • The ground plan of a work or works. 

  • The intersection of a plane of projection, or an original plane, with a coordinate plane. 

  • The sum of the diagonal elements of a square matrix. 

  • An empty category occupying a position in the syntactic structure from which something has been moved, used to explain constructions such as wh-movement and the passive. 

  • A residue of some substance or material. 

  • An enquiry sent out for a missing article, such as a letter or an express package. 

  • A connecting bar or rod, pivoted at each end to the end of another piece, for transmitting motion, especially from one plane to another; specifically, such a piece in an organ stop action to transmit motion from the trundle to the lever actuating the stop slider. 

  • A mark left as a sign of passage of a person or animal. 

  • An act of tracing. 

  • A very small amount. 

  • One of two straps, chains, or ropes of a harness, extending from the collar or breastplate to a whippletree attached to a vehicle or thing to be drawn; a tug. 

  • An informal road or prominent path in an arid area. 

  • A current-carrying conductive pathway on a printed circuit board. 

trail

verb
  • To travel by following or creating trails. 

  • To show a trailer of (a film, TV show etc.); to release or publish a preview of (a report etc.) in advance of the full publication. 

  • To run or climb like certain plants. 

  • To be losing, to be behind in a competition. 

  • To leave (a trail of). 

  • To carry (a firearm) with the breech near the ground and the upper part inclined forward, the piece being held by the right hand near the middle. 

  • To transport (livestock) by herding it along a trail. 

  • To hang or drag loosely behind; to move with a slow sweeping motion. 

  • To follow behind (someone or something); to tail (someone or something). 

  • To drag oneself lazily or reluctantly along. 

  • To drag (something) behind on the ground. 

  • To create a trail in. 

noun
  • A trailer broadcast on television for a forthcoming film or programme. 

  • The track or indication marking the route followed by something that has passed, such as the footprints of animal on land or the contrail of an airplane in the sky. 

  • A walk in which all the edges are distinct. 

  • A route for travel over land, especially a narrow, unpaved pathway for use by hikers, horseback riders, etc. 

  • A route or circuit generally. 

  • The horizontal distance from where the wheel touches the ground to where the steering axis intersects the ground. 

How often have the words trace and trail occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )