Meaning & use
tracker person
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A person whose job or skill is following the marks left by animals or people in order to find them.
Grammar: Countable: say "a tracker person" or "tracker people"; it usually takes a singular verb.
Patterns
- a tracker person for someone
- work as a tracker person
- a skilled tracker person
The rangers hired a tracker person to find the injured elephant.
In the desert, a good tracker person can read footprints that most of us would never notice.
She trained for years to become a tracker person for the wildlife service.
nouncountable
Someone who follows another person's movements, especially secretly, to gather information about them.
Grammar: Countable and often used with words like "online" or "private"; usually singular in this sense.
Patterns
- an online tracker person
- a tracker person hired by someone
The company used a tracker person to check whether staff were really working.
He suspected a tracker person was watching his flat from the street.
Word forms
| plural | tracker people |
|---|
Common combinations
- hire a tracker person
- The film crew hired a tracker person to guide them through the forest.
- an expert tracker person
- Only an expert tracker person could follow that trail after the rain.
- a tracker person for the police
- He worked as a tracker person for the police during the search.
- a professional tracker person
- A professional tracker person can tell how old a footprint is.
Synonyms and how they differ
- tracker
- The usual, shorter word for the same job; use "tracker" in almost every situation and reserve "tracker person" for when you must make clear you mean a human rather than a device.
- hunter
- A hunter kills or catches animals, while a tracker person mainly follows their signs; a tracker may never hunt at all.
- guide
- A guide shows the way and often knows the area well, but may not have tracking skills; a tracker person is chosen for reading tracks.
Word family
Commonly confused: tracker person or traitor? tracker person or tracker?
tracker person vs traitor
These sound similar, but a traitor betrays a country or a friend, while a tracker person follows tracks. Check the vowel sound in the middle.
tracker person vs tracker
"Tracker" alone often means a device or app that records movement, so add "person" only when you really need to show it is a human being.
Practice
Which sentence uses the phrase correctly?
Choose one answer.
Option 0 is right because a singular countable noun needs "a" before it. Option 1 is missing the article, option 2 uses a plural form after "a," and option 3 mixes a present-tense verb with "yesterday."
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “tracker person”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.