What's the difference between tack and track?

Tack


Definition:

  • (n.) A stain; a tache.
  • (n.) A peculiar flavor or taint; as, a musty tack.
  • (n.) A small, short, sharp-pointed nail, usually having a broad, flat head.
  • (n.) That which is attached; a supplement; an appendix. See Tack, v. t., 3.
  • (v. t.) A rope used to hold in place the foremost lower corners of the courses when the vessel is closehauled (see Illust. of Ship); also, a rope employed to pull the lower corner of a studding sail to the boom.
  • (v. t.) The part of a sail to which the tack is usually fastened; the foremost lower corner of fore-and-aft sails, as of schooners (see Illust. of Sail).
  • (v. t.) The direction of a vessel in regard to the trim of her sails; as, the starboard tack, or port tack; -- the former when she is closehauled with the wind on her starboard side; hence, the run of a vessel on one tack; also, a change of direction.
  • (v. t.) A contract by which the use of a thing is set, or let, for hire; a lease.
  • (v. t.) Confidence; reliance.
  • (v. t.) To fasten or attach.
  • (v. t.) Especially, to attach or secure in a slight or hasty manner, as by stitching or nailing; as, to tack together the sheets of a book; to tack one piece of cloth to another; to tack on a board or shingle; to tack one piece of metal to another by drops of solder.
  • (v. t.) In parliamentary usage, to add (a supplement) to a bill; to append; -- often with on or to.
  • (v. t.) To change the direction of (a vessel) when sailing closehauled, by putting the helm alee and shifting the tacks and sails so that she will proceed to windward nearly at right angles to her former course.
  • (v. i.) To change the direction of a vessel by shifting the position of the helm and sails; also (as said of a vessel), to have her direction changed through the shifting of the helm and sails. See Tack, v. t., 4.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Tiny, tiny... rodents – some soft and grey, some brown with black stripes, in paintings, posters, wallcharts, thumb-tacked magazine clippings and poorly executed crayon drawings, hurling themselves fatally in their thousands over the cliff of their island home; or crudely taxidermied and mounted, eyes glazed and little paws frozen stiff – on every available surface.
  • (2) But fresh evidence that waiting times are creeping up, despite David Cameron's pledge to keep them low, has forced Lansley to change tack and impose an extra treatment directive on the NHS.
  • (3) The Department for Culture, Media and Sport also left the door open for a change of tack over the use of the licence fee, saying that if "better options than the government's preferred one emerge in the meantime", it will "consider them".
  • (4) Two eyes with complex detachments with fixed rolled retinas could not have been repaired without the help of retinal tacks.
  • (5) The government needs to change tack and admit that its obsession with structural changes to schools has failed.” Ofsted chief criticises independent schools' lack of help for state schools Read more Wilshaw’s letter was based on the results of inspections of the management and operations of seven academy chains running 220 schools across the country: AET, E-Act, Wakefield City Academies, Oasis, CfBT, The Education Fellowship and the most recent, School Partnership Trust Academies (SPTA).
  • (6) "It was done to silence her," Akbulatov says, speaking in Memorial's office, a colour photo of Estemirova tacked to the wall.
  • (7) On some issues - particularly Europe - Lib Dems in the south have to tack more to the right.
  • (8) Syrian security forces were reported to have launched another wave of violence against pro-democracy protesters on Tuesday as President Bashar al-Assad rejected a Turkish appeal to change tack or meet the fate of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.
  • (9) The prospect of Front National gains has left Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, a broad coalition of centre right and rightwing factions, scrapping over what tack to take to hang on to their seats.
  • (10) In the face of popular passions about immigration and the European Union, the Labour party has bobbed and tacked without taking a clear line.
  • (11) Along with some of his fellow Rangers, he walked me through the program – a strong, impressive young man, with an easy manner, sharp as a tack.
  • (12) An improved retinal tack and applicator can be used to fix the retina to the wall of the eye mechanically.
  • (13) In monkey eyes, histological examination disclosed a considerable fibrovascular proliferation around the retinal tack canal, including an inflammatory response, formation of collagenous tissue and glial proliferation.
  • (14) The correlation between the results of all these researches leaves little doubt on the existence of eye-tacking dysfunctions in schizophrenics.
  • (15) A previous owner tacked on additional rooms seemingly at random, giving the impression of a mad, elongated cottage with an internal maze.
  • (16) It's a change of tack for the Playboy brand after some troubled decades, and many believe this return to affluent values and women dressed as rabbits is exactly the right move.
  • (17) When practiced by several surgeons, the flap tacking procedure 1) reduces postmastectomy seromas and 2) reduces the amount of postoperative patient office visits and care.
  • (18) Those changes have not altered the fundamental structure of the system, but instead have been tacked onto it, and exemplify what may be termed additive reform.
  • (19) 4.09am GMT Saints 23-24 Eagles, 4:44, 4th quarter The Saints certainly have time here to respond, and in fact they might need so slow things down themselves after moving immediately up to the 48-yard line on a nice Darren Sproles kick return that had an additional 15 yards tacked on the end for a horsecollar tackle.
  • (20) Tritiated thymidine autoradiography was used to evaluate the proliferation of ocular tissues in response to tack insertion.

Track


Definition:

  • (n.) A mark left by something that has passed along; as, the track, or wake, of a ship; the track of a meteor; the track of a sled or a wheel.
  • (n.) A mark or impression left by the foot, either of man or beast; trace; vestige; footprint.
  • (n.) The entire lower surface of the foot; -- said of birds, etc.
  • (n.) A road; a beaten path.
  • (n.) Course; way; as, the track of a comet.
  • (n.) A path or course laid out for a race, for exercise, etc.
  • (n.) The permanent way; the rails.
  • (n.) A tract or area, as of land.
  • (v. t.) To follow the tracks or traces of; to pursue by following the marks of the feet; to trace; to trail; as, to track a deer in the snow.
  • (v. t.) To draw along continuously, as a vessel, by a line, men or animals on shore being the motive power; to tow.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Lucy and Ed will combine coverage of hard and breaking news with a commitment to investigative journalism, which their track record so clearly demonstrates”.
  • (2) DATA Modern football data analysis has its origins in a video-based system that used computer vision algorithms to automatically track players.
  • (3) The company said it was on track to meet forecasts for annual profit of about £110m.
  • (4) Liu was a driving force behind the modernisation of China's rail system, a project that included building 10,000 miles of high-speed rail track by 2020 – with a budget of £170bn, one of the most expensive engineering feats in recent history.
  • (5) Tracks were almost exclusively written on tour, including this jolting number, with an additional four tracks recorded in the studio.
  • (6) Both microcomputer use and tracking patient care experience are technical skills similar to learning any medical procedure with which physicians are already familiar.
  • (7) Nevertheless, Richard Bacon MP, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, who has tirelessly tracked failings in NHS IT, said last night: "I think the chances that Lorenzo will be turned into a credible and popular product are vanishingly small.
  • (8) Gerhard Schröder , Merkel’s immediate predecessor, had pushed through parliament a radical reform agenda to get the country’s spluttering economy back on track.
  • (9) That would be the first step towards banning Russia’s track team from next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
  • (10) Piedmont’s research, which was conducted among 3,000 filmgoers and weighted to the demographics of the cinemagoing public, is not the same as the Hollywood tracking system, which delivers predictions of box-office success.
  • (11) Only two of the 31 commandos escaped; the rest were tracked down and killed.
  • (12) Latencies were increased two- to threefold, and tracking was more variable.
  • (13) However, clemastine caused a decay in subjects' performance in both Experiments I and II, but only on the tracking task.
  • (14) Burns has a successful track record of opposing fees.
  • (15) The workforce has changed dramatically since 1900 – just 29,000 Americans today work in fishing and the number of job titles tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has grown to almost 600 – everything from “animal trainers” to “wind turbine service technicians” (and there are even more sub categories).
  • (16) The fact that we’re tracking towards the hottest year on record should send chills through anyone who says they care about climate change – especially negotiators at the UN climate talks here in Lima,” said Samantha Smith, who heads WWF’s climate and energy initiative.
  • (17) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Beyoncé’s last album was an iTunes exclusive, with videos for every track.
  • (18) Cameras have been set up by the zoo to track his movements and footpaths in the area closed by the county council.
  • (19) Comparison of these tracks and the Hadar hominid foot fossils by Tuttle has led him to conclude that Australopithecus afarensis did not make the Tanzanian prints and that a more derived form of hominid is therefore indicated at Laetoli.
  • (20) A lot is being expected of rookie cornerbacks Desmond Trufant and Robert Alford, but defensive co-ordinator Mike Nolan has a good track record of keeping his units competitive.