track down meaning and examples thumbnail

track down meaning and examples

2025-11-22

Meaning

Track down means to search for and find someone or something after difficulty.
It implies persistent effort, investigation, or following clues.

Grammar and Usage

  • Part of speech: Phrasal verb (transitive)
  • Structure:
    • track down + noun
    • track + noun + down
  • Used when locating a person, object, information, or cause.

Patterns

  • track down someone/something
  • track someone/something down

Common Phrases

  • track down the culprit
  • track down the source
  • track down a lost item
  • track down information
  • track down a witness

Collocations

  • try to track down
  • manage to track down
  • finally track down
  • track down the cause
  • track down missing files

Examples

  1. The police managed to track down the suspect after a week.
  2. I finally tracked down the book I’d been looking for.
  3. They’re trying to track down the source of the data leak.
  4. We tracked down an old friend from college on social media.
  5. The technician tracked down the problem in the network.
  6. She spent hours tracking down a missing document.
  7. Reporters are trying to track down witnesses to the accident.
  • locate
  • find
  • hunt down
  • seek out
  • trace

Antonym

  • lose
  • overlook
  • miss