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vestige

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A small remaining trace or mark of something that has mostly disappeared.

Detailed Definition
In older or more literary English, a vestige is a faint remnant or leftover sign. Rossetti uses it to suggest that even a tiny trace of memory or thought would be enough to matter in the poem's farewell.
Example
Example in poetry:
“For if the darkness and corruption leave / A vestige of the thoughts that once I had” uses vestige for a surviving trace; Shelley’s “vast wreck” in “Ozymandias” leaves a vestige of vanished power; Wordsworth’s ruined abbey in “Tintern Abbey” preserves vestiges that prompt memory; In an elegy, “a vestige of her laugh remained in rain” shows the word’s ghostly, physical resonance
Additional Notes
"vestige" in the quoted line is a literary word for a tiny remnant, which many readers may need to look up.; Found in the poem, Remember by Christina Rossetti
Also Known As
trace remnant footprint relic
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