tracttract /trækt/ ●○○ noun [countable] 
vast tracts of woodland3formal a short piece of writing, especially about a moral or religious subject: a tract on the dangers of drink
WORD ORIGINtract
Origin:
1-2 1400-1500 Latin tractus ‘pulling, extension’, from trahere ‘to pull’3 1400-1500 Latin tractatus ‘tract’, from tractare; ➔ TRACTABLEEXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
- Bible tracts
- There are large tracts of vacant land near the river, which could be used for farming.
- Vast tracts of Brazilian rain forest continue to be cut down every year.
- Another correspondent asked for cheap tracts which she could distribute to the poor as the middle class were already knowledgeable.
- As indicated, Spenser was unsuccessful, his tract censored.
- His fame rests on the flurry of tracts he published in his last years, and little is known of his background.
- Large tracts of the North-East and North Yorkshire are used by the Army for training.
- Postmortem examination was carried out in seven patients, and the gastrointestinal tract was fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin.
- These histological findings were similar in all parts of the gastrointestinal tract.
THESAURUS
a very short book with paper covers that usually contains information on one particular subject: · a free booklet on drug abuse· Have you read the information booklet?
a thin book with paper covers that gives information on something you may want to buy or advertises something: · glossy holiday brochures· The hotel was nothing like it said it would be in the brochure.· The brochure shows you all the different types of washing machine.
a small book or piece of paper, often only one or two folded pages, that advertises something or gives information on a particular subject: · a leaflet about library services· They were handing out leaflets for the Socialist Party.
a very thin book with paper covers, in which someone writes about their opinions about something, or gives information about something: · a political pamphlet· Paine wrote a pamphlet about slavery.· The pamphlet tells you all you need to know about growing cactuses.
especially British English a thin paper book that advertises and gives information about a school, college, new business etc: · I asked them to send me the college prospectus.
a small sheet of paper advertising something: · People were giving out flyers advertising the fair.
a thin short book, especially about a moral or religious subject – a rather formal use: · Two women were handing out religious tracts.
Longman Language Activatora large area of land a large continuous area of land, water, or sky: expanse of: · We traveled across a broad expanse of desert.vast expanse (=extremely large area): · the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean
an area of land or water, especially one that is long and narrow: stretch of : · an empty stretch of highway· The stretch of coastline between Barcelona and the French border is called the Costa Brava.
a very large area of land of a particular type, for example, an area of forest or farming country: vast/huge/large tracts of something: · Vast tracts of Brazilian rain forest continue to be cut down every year.· There are large tracts of vacant land near the river, which could be used for farming.
WORD SETSabyss, nounalluvial, adjectivealluvium, nounalpine, adjectiveAmerican, adjectiveAntarctica, anticyclone, nounarchipelago, nounArctic, adjectivearid, adjectiveAsia, atlas, nounatoll, nounAustralasia, Australasian, adjectiveAustralia, avalanche, nounaxis, nounbank, nounbarometer, nounbarrier reef, nounbasin, nounbay, nounbayou, nounbeach, nounbearing, nounbed, nounbight, nounbluff, nounborder, nounborder, verbborderland, nounborderline, nounborough, nounbox canyon, nounBritish, adjectivebutte, nouncanyon, nouncape, nouncapital, nouncardinal point, nounCaribbean, adjectivecartography, nouncay, nounchain, nounchaparral, nounchart, nounchasm, nounchimney, nounChinese, adjectivecirrus, nounCIS, nouncliff, nounclimate, nounclimatic, adjectivecoastal, adjectivecoastline, nouncockney, nouncol, nouncold front, nouncommuter belt, nouncompass, nounconfluence, nouncontinent, nouncontinental, adjectivecontinental shelf, nouncontour, nounconurbation, nouncoordinate, nouncorridor, nouncorrie, nouncoterminous, adjectivecouncil estate, nouncountry, nouncounty, nouncounty town, nouncourse, nouncove, nouncrag, nouncraggy, adjectivecreek, nouncrevasse, nouncrevice, nouncumulus, nouncyclone, noundateline, noundelta, noundesert, noundesert island, noundevelopment, noundistrict, noundivide, noundown, adverbdune, noundust bowl, nouneast, nouneast, adjectiveeast, adverbeastbound, adjectiveeasterly, adjectiveeasterly, nouneastern, adjectiveEasterner, nouneasternmost, adjectiveeastwards, adverbelevation, nouneminence, nounenvirons, nounequatorial, adjectiveerode, verberosion, nounescarpment, nounestuary, nounEurope, nounextraterritorial, adjectiveeyot, nounface, nounfarmland, nounfeeder, nounfiord, nounfirth, nounfjord, nounflood plain, nounfluvial, adjectivefrontier, nounfrontiersman, noungale force, adjectivegap, noungeo-, prefixgeography, noungeophysics, noungeopolitics, noungeyser, nounglacial, adjectiveglaciation, nounglacier, nounglobe, noungoldfield, noungorge, noungrassland, nounGrecian, adjectivegreen belt, noungrid, noungrotto, noungroundwater, noungulch, noungulf, noungully, nounhead, nounheadland, nounheadwaters, nounheartland, nounhemisphere, nounhighland, adjectivehighlands, nounhigh water mark, nounhinterland, nounHome Counties, the, homeland, nounhurricane, noun-i, suffixIberian, adjectiveiceberg, nounice cap, nounice floe, nounice pack, nounice sheet, nouninhabitant, nouninland, adjectiveinland, adverbinlet, nouninner city, nouninshore, adverbinsular, adjectiveintercontinental, adjectiveInternational Date Line, nounisland, nounisle, nounislet, nounisobar, nounIsraeli, adjectiveIsraeli, nounisthmus, nounItalian, adjectiveItalianate, adjectiveItalo-, prefixJapanese, adjectivekey, nounknoll, nounlagoon, nounlake, nounlandlocked, adjectivelandmass, nounlandslide, nounlandslip, nounlat., Latin, adjectiveLatin America, nounLatin American, adjectivelatitude, nounlevee, nounlittoral, nounlong., longitude, nounlongitudinal, adjectivelough, nounlowlands, nounlow-lying, adjectivelow water mark, nounmagnetic north, nounmagnetic pole, nounmarsh, nounmarshland, nounmeander, verbMediterranean, adjectiveMercator projection, nounmeridian, nounmesa, nounMiddle America, nounmidtown, adjectivemonsoon, nounmoorland, nounmorass, nounmountain, nounmountainside, nounmountaintop, nounmouth, nounmudslide, nounmull, nounnarrows, nounnavigation, nounNE, neck, nounnor'-, prefixnorth, nounnorth, adjectivenorth, adverbNorth America, nounnortheast, nounnortheast, adjectivenortheasterly, adjectivenortheastern, adjectivenortheastwards, adverbnortherly, adjectivenorthern, adjectivenortherner, nounnorthernmost, adjectivenorthwards, adverbnorthwest, nounnorthwest, adjectivenorthwesterly, adjectivenorthwestern, adjectivenorthwestwards, adverbnotch, nounNW, NZ, oasis, nounoccidental, nounocean, nounonshore, adjectiveopenness, nounOrdnance Survey map, nounoriental, adjectiveoutcrop, nounoverspill, nounpack ice, nounpaddy, nounpalisade, nounpan-, prefixpanhandle, nounparallel, nounpeak, nounpeninsula, nounPersian, adjectivephysical geography, nounplain, nounplateau, nounpoint, nounpolar, adjectivepole, nounpolitical geography, nounpollutant, nounpop., populate, verbpopulation, nounprairie, nounprecipice, nounprecipitation, nounPrime Meridian, principality, nounprojection, nounpromontory, nounprovince, nounprovincial, adjectivepueblo, nounR, rainfall, nounrain forest, nounrain gauge, nounrainstorm, nounrange, nounravine, nounreef, nounreference, nounregion, nounregional, adjectiverelief map, nounreservoir, nounresettle, verbresidential, adjectiveresource, nounridge, nounrift valley, nounrise, verbriver, nounriver basin, nounriver bed, nounRoman, adjectiverotation, nounrugged, adjectiverun-off, nounrural, adjectivesand, nounsand bar, nounsandstorm, nounsandy, adjectivesavanna, nounScandinavian, nounscar, nounscarp, nounscree, nounscrubland, nounSE, seaboard, nounsea breeze, nounseafront, nounsea level, nounseaport, nounseaward, adjectivesection, nounsemitropical, adjectiveshelf, nounslough, nounsmog, nounsnowfield, nounsource, nounsouth, nounsouth, adjectivesouth, adverbSouth America, adjectivesoutheast, nounsoutheast, adjectivesoutheasterly, adjectivesoutheastern, adjectivesoutheastwards, adverbsoutherly, adjectivesouthern, adjectivesouthernmost, adjectivesouthwards, adverbsouthwest, nounsouthwest, adjectivesouthwesterly, adjectivesouthwestern, adjectivesouthwestwards, adverbspeleology, nounspit, nounspur, nounstrait, nounsubcontinent, nounsubtropical, adjectivesuburb, nounsuburban, adjectivesummit, nounsurvey, nounsurvey, verbSW, swamp, nountableland, nounterrain, nounterritory, nountidal, adjectivetidal wave, nountidewater, nountime zone, nountop, nountopography, nountor, nountornado, nountown, nountown centre, nountowpath, nountrack, nountract, nountrade route, nountrail, nountransatlantic, adjectivetranscontinental, adjectivetributary, nountropic, nountropical, adjectivetundra, nountyphoon, nounUK, the, uncharted, adjectiveup, adverbup-country, adjectiveuplands, nounupper, adjectiveupriver, adverbupstate, adjectiveupstream, adverbuptown, adverburban, adjectiveurbanized, adjectiveurban renewal, nounurban sprawl, nounUS, the, adjectivevalley, nounW, warm front, nounwaste, adjectivewasteland, nounwater, verbwatercourse, nounwaterfall, nounwaterfront, nounwaterhole, nounwatering place, nounwater meadow, nounwatershed, nounwater table, nounwaterway, nounweather vane, nounwest, nounwest, adjectiveWest, nounwestern, adjectiveWesterner, nounwesternmost, adjectivewestward, adverbwilderness, nounwolds, nounzoning, noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES vast areas of rainforestCOLLOCATIONS FROM THE CORPUSADJECTIVE
(=a large area of land)· Cattle ranching requires large tracts of land.
vast areas of rainforest· Free-living communities and alimentary tract helminths: hypotheses and pattern analysis - D Simberloff.
· Despite these criteria, patients with biliary tract calculi have been included in several studies of primary sclerosing cholangitis.· Despite these measures, biliary tract calculi recurred in all 12 patients after removal.· We have reviewed our experience of exfoliative cytology in the management of patients with biliary tract strictures.· Improved methods of obtaining a tissue diagnosis are therefore becoming essential to the management of biliary tract strictures.· Sclerosing cholangitis and biliary tract calculi - primary or secondary?· This group included 23 patients with biliary tract calculi, commonly considered as excluding the diagnosis of primary sclerosing cholangitis.· Patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis complicated by biliary tract calculi were more likely to be symptomatic at presentation than those without calculi.
· But for all the insufficiency of Rheinberger's digestive tract, this is an enjoyable disc.· Because it dissolves easily in water, it is rapidly absorbed from the digestive tract and mixes easily with blood.· Or it could simply be activity in the digestive tract.· What seems to happen is that the calcium in your food combines with oxalic acid right in your digestive tract.· This is a cleansing agent of the digestive tract and it also aids digestion.· Dinosaurs also had a larger digestive tract that seemed to have co-evolved with the changes in Earth's flora and fauna.· Towards the end of his life he overdosed on dry adrenalin, and scorched his digestive tract.
· Neuropeptide Y has also been isolated from the gastrointestinal tract with large concentrations found in the biliary tree.· The remaining amount of uric acid is excreted in the biliary, pancreatic, and gastrointestinal secretions through the gastrointestinal tract.· It is well known the Crohn's disease is a diffuse lesion of the entire gastrointestinal tract.· Twenty two had severe lifelong constipation and eight had symptoms suggesting a motility disorder exclusively of the upper gastrointestinal tract.· Postmortem examination was carried out in seven patients, and the gastrointestinal tract was fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin.· Iron deficiency anaemia is commonly caused by chronic blood loss from the gastrointestinal tract.· These histological findings were similar in all parts of the gastrointestinal tract.· Colonic mucins are also highly sulphated, more so in fact than mucins produced elsewhere in the gastrointestinal tract.
· Oceanic drift-nets are literally wiping out life over huge tracts of the world's oceans.· Wind farms also take up huge tracts of land and can kill birds caught in turbine blades.· The Ringstrasse was built on a huge tract of open land surrounding the city which had previously served as a military fortification.· To the north-west, there is of course Milton Keynes. Huge tracts of this city of 137,000 are not yet built.
· Finally, the intestinal tract was excised, fixed in formalin, stained with haematoxylin and eosin, then coded.· Following absorption in the intestinal tract, potassium is partially filtered from the plasma by the kidneys.· They include some of the symptoms of allergy: Disturbances of the stomach and intestinal tract, such as stomach ache.· It attacks the intestinal tract, liver and other organs.· Hexamita is in fact routinely isolated from the intestinal tracts of many species of tropical and coldwater fish including trout and goldfish.· The bullet ripped through her intestinal tract and lodged in her lower abdomen....· Doctors had to perform a colostomy, rerouting the undamaged intestinal tract to a substitute opening in her lower abdomen.
· The first applications for permission to grow large commercial tracts of the new trees are expected to come in about five years.· There are also large tracts where, it would appear, no University research has been undertaken.· A forest is a dense growth of trees and shrubby undergrowth covering a large tract of land.· It's not a single canyon but rather a branching series of gorges covering a large tract of land.· Over the winter of 1997 / 98 huge fires had destroyed large tracts of forest in Borneo.· Otherwise large tracts of land would be lost to the sea.· Dinosaurs also had a larger digestive tract that seemed to have co-evolved with the changes in Earth's flora and fauna.· The lucrative sugar-beet industry had led to the buying up of large tracts of land before the World War.
· We are not aware of reports from developing countries of the outcome of hypoxaemia in children with acute lower respiratory tract infection.
· Following mating, the sperm are stored in special tiny tubules in the female's reproductive tract.· Are women getting education and treatment for reproductive tract infections?· In most mammals sperm are viable in the female's reproductive tract for a matter of hours.
· The cilia in the respiratory tract hasten the exit from the body of possibly harmful foreign material.· Subjects who developed a symptomatic infection of the upper respiratory tract were retested while ill and again one month later when asymptomatic.· With further respiratory tract infections there remains a tendency to impaired hearing, but this is transient.· We are not aware of reports from developing countries of the outcome of hypoxaemia in children with acute lower respiratory tract infection.· Ether is irritant to the mouse respiratory tract and can cause excessive mucous secretion.· It is another remedy with an affinity for the respiratory tract.· Certainly smoking stimulates mucin secretion by the respiratory tract mucosa, probably by a direct irritant effect.· When inhaled, these very small clusters are deposited in the respiratory tract.
· Twenty two had severe lifelong constipation and eight had symptoms suggesting a motility disorder exclusively of the upper gastrointestinal tract.· Subjects who developed a symptomatic infection of the upper respiratory tract were retested while ill and again one month later when asymptomatic.· Thus, for the first time, recordings of fasting and fed motility patterns of the upper gastrointestinal tract have been achieved.· In some - perhaps most - cases effusion may be a normal reaction to an upper respiratory tract infection.· Little is known, however, about plasminogen activators in solid tumours of the upper gastrointestinal tract.· Unlike the dysuria associated with cystitis or upper renal tract infection, gonococcal dysuria is rarely combined with frequency of micturition.
· This can have devastating consequences, and may cause long-term damage to the urinary tract.· Infections of kidney / urinary tract 12, 399 4. 9· There may be much urging to urinate, smarting, stinging, burning along the urinary tract.· Infections in the bloodstream, urinary tract or lungs usually are dangerous only to people with other illnesses and weakened immune systems.· Infections of kidney / urinary tract 8, 006 3. 5· It is now doubtful whether urinary tract infection has any role to play in the production of this renal lesion.· Nine percent of patients had at least one urinary tract infection.
· There were in fact many others, with vast tracts of empty space between them.· That vast tracts can be bought and sold as casually as a loaf of bread is immoral.· At a time when vast tracts were unsettled, it was all too easy for governments to be profligate.· All is slanted to maintaining the Establishment stranglehold on vast tracts of land for their own selfish playgrounds.· At the same time, the forest path and road lights were switched on and lit up vast tracts of the Heide.· Gosse was perplexed at the vast tracts of time required by geologists to account for the deposition of all the strata.· The vast tracts of sterile desert land were broken only by irregular patches of short, dry grasses or rough scrubland.
NOUN· The variations in prosperity in the North Side become more acute when observed on the smaller scale of the census tract.· Its neighbouring census tract to the north exhibited diametrically opposite trends, suggesting that whilst one area improved another declined.· When census tracts are scrutinised in this neighbourhood a sharp division in experience becomes apparent.· When the data for census tracts are observed a marked discrepancy can be seen within East Allegheny.· There is less monitoring of such programmes at the micro-scale, that of the neighbourhood or census tract.
· With further respiratory tract infections there remains a tendency to impaired hearing, but this is transient.· Gastrointestinal tract infections 1, 377 0. 6· It is now doubtful whether urinary tract infection has any role to play in the production of this renal lesion.· Gastrointestinal tract infections 985 0. 4· We are not aware of reports from developing countries of the outcome of hypoxaemia in children with acute lower respiratory tract infection.· Are women getting education and treatment for reproductive tract infections?
VERB· The latter led him to publish a pungent tract on patent medicines.· He buried himself in books on comparative religion, and began publishing scholarly tracts and books about the goddess.
· It was for him that St Bernard wrote his famous tract on papal power.· Women who wrote tracts did not automatically create scandal in those days, but public platform speaking was denied them.· He was interested in politics and wrote tracts.· He wrote many religious tracts and books.· Plotinus wrote his most impassioned tract to attack Gnosticism as pretentious mumbo-jumbo.· The political leaders themselves were often active propagandists; both Somers and Harley, for example, wrote their own tracts.
PHRASES FROM THE ENTRY
1the digestive/reproductive/urinary etc tract a system of connected organs that have one main purpose in a part of your body2a large area of land: - Because it dissolves easily in water, it is rapidly absorbed from the digestive tract and mixes easily with blood.
- It is rare, however, for the urinary tract to be affected.
- Obstruction covered all mechanical obstruction to the urinary tract, excluding prostatic disease.
- Or it could simply be activity in the digestive tract.
- There may be much urging to urinate, smarting, stinging, burning along the urinary tract.
- This can have devastating consequences, and may cause long-term damage to the urinary tract.
- This is a cleansing agent of the digestive tract and it also aids digestion.
vast tracts of woodland3formal a short piece of writing, especially about a moral or religious subject: a tract on the dangers of drink