tracer

1. 1.

   an investigator who is employed to find missing persons or missing goods

   Broaderdetective
2. 2.

   an instrument used to make tracings

   Broaderinstrument
3. 3.

   (radiology) any radioactive isotope introduced into the body to study metabolism or other biological processes

   Broaderradioisotope

   radiology

4. 4.

   ammunition whose flight can be observed by a trail of smoke

   Synonymstracer bullet

   Broaderammunition

Other forms of tracer

plural

tracers·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about tracer

What does tracer mean?

tracer means "an investigator who is employed to find missing persons or missing goods". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tracer?

tracer has 2 syllables: tra-cer. The stress falls on "tra". In IPA it is /ˈtɹeɪsɚ/.

What is another word for tracer?

Close synonyms include tracer bullet. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is tracer a common word?

tracer is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.