to identify.
to issue an ID to.
Go to the admissions office if you haven't been ID'd yet.
Idaho (approved especially for use with zip code).
inner diameter, internal diameter, or inside diameter. Also i.d.
contraction of I had:
I'd never seen anything like it before!
contraction of I would:
If I were you, I'd be careful what I wish for.
identification.
identity.
Military. Infantry Division.
Intelligence Department.
indicating members of a zoological family
cyprinid
indicating members of a dynasty
Seleucid
Fatimid
indicating the names of meteor showers that appear to radiate from a specified constellation
Orionids (from Orion)
indicating a particle, body, or structure of a specified kind
energid
Idaho
identification (document)
Also: i.d. inside diameter
Intelligence Department
Also: i.d. intradermal
See contraction.
1920–25; < Latin id it, as a translation of German Es, special use of es it, as a psychoanalytic term
First recorded in 1935–40
First recorded in 1590–1600
< Latin -id-, stem of -is < Greek: feminine patronymic suffix; or < Latin -idēs < Greek: masculine patronymic suffix
< Greek -idēs -id 1, as singular of New Latin -ida -ida or -idae -idae
From the Latin suffix -idus
First recorded in 1950–55
Use the word id when you talk about the most basic, impulsive part of a person's mind. A baby's instincts for food and comfort, for example, are controlled by her id. In psychology, particularly in psychoanalysis, the mind is divided into three basic parts. The most instinctive of these is the id, the drives for pleasure, food, sex, and aggression. The id is the most chaotic and least organized part of the mind, controlled in a healthy person by the ego and superego. The word id is a Latin translation of the "Es" in Sigmund Freud's "Das Ich und das Es." Both Es and id mean "it."
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I don’t remember when apple picking turned into such an unleashed expression of autumnal id.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
I’m not a rule-follower much, but I cannot imagine a world in which id tell an owner—nah—I’m doing it my way.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
Jonas adds, “It’s allegorical in nature. What if I could just take this man and chain him up? It’s making that literal for us to watch. It’s about that female id deep inside of us.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 26, 2026
You can also get your fossil identified by sending pictures to the British Geological Survey or the Natural History Museum id unit.
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 2026
The more specific term i.e., short for the Latin id est, means “that is.”
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
When security personnel opened it, it was found to contain "another recording device" similar to the one discovered, as well as Alfozan's wallet and ID.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
Savage is adamant about keeping security focused on serving trans patrons, describing the difficult experience of being harassed by security guards at other clubs if the gender on your ID doesn’t match how you present.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
I saw R.E.M. for the first time the night I graduated high school in 1981, when I took myself and my fake ID to a club in Mt.
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2026
The crew’s morning began in Kyiv before dawn with an air-raid alert and an evacuation of the station, recalls conductor Natalia Matsiiuk as she checks people’s tickets and ID.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026
“Each person’s key is their photo ID, which must contain a magnetic stripe.”
From "City Spies" by James Ponti
“Everybody says, ‘Of course, I’d leave a note,’” says Chase Thiel, senior associate dean at the University of Wyoming.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026
“So if you ask me kind of what the overall toy industry is going to do, I’d probably give you an ‘I don’t know.’”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 22, 2026
“It was very futuristic and just visually different than anything that I’d ever done before. And it’s so rare that you get the opportunity to be so expressive and to be so big on screen.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026
"There's nothing wrong with it. I'd feel awkward sitting there if I didn't make a purchase. I'd rather leave the seats for those who made purchases and need the seats," another Weibo user commented.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2026
Their story painted a sappy, romantic picture that I’d idolized.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Chrysalis or -id: applied specifically to the intermedial stage between larva and adult in butterflies: see pupa.
From Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology by John. B. Smith
It was the essential nature of the marriage right, discussed at length in Zablocki, see id., at 383-387, that made apparent the law’s incompatibility with requirements of equality.
From MSNBC ● Jun. 26, 2015
It was the essential nature of the marriage right, discussed at length in Zablocki, see id., at 383–387, that made apparent the law’s incompatibility with requirements of equality.
From Time ● Jun. 26, 2015
“If you look at it in Freudian terms, it’s like the id. It’s this unmasked side of ourselves,” he says.
From Time ● Apr. 17, 2014
The court found that the appellant “plainly manifested,” id. at 17, an expectation that his email would not be scrutinized.
From Forbes ● Feb. 8, 2011
He describes Bartholomew as not unlike his brother, but not so tall, less affable in manner, and more stern in disposition, id. tom. ii. p.
From The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest by John Fiske
Curtis introduced the manager of the Magic Lantern Cinema of Ketchum, Id., who spoke about being traumatized by John Carpenter’s original “Halloween,” Curtis’ breakout role.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2021
Local bans on personal fireworks have also been implemented in Montana's Yellowstone National Park and other cities like Boise, Id. and Santa Fe, N.M., are working to follow suit.
From Fox News ● Jul. 4, 2021
Antipholis, thus Id. conj. a nipping hate Heath conj. unkind debate Collier MS.
From The Comedy of Errors The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] by William George Clark
Take the estimates, the budget, presented by the minister De ca Hacienda, for the past year of 1842:— Revenue 1842, 879,193,400 reals Id. expenditure, 1,541,639,800 id.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 331, May, 1843 by Various
See the Act of June 7, 1785: Id., vol. i. p.
From Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Henry Reeves
You can also put his documents in a safe place, ID.; verification of all current income, including Social Security and records of assets.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
“They refuse to give ID. They’re driving regular cars with tinted windows and in some cases out-of-state license plates,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2025
“And obviously I couldn't do face ID. So it was a question of having a passcode.”
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2024
“You cannot take medical insurance. That’s wild. You cannot get an ID. Without ID, you cannot open a banking account.”
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 25, 2021
“Everything got very quiet. There was two hundred dollars in it, and all of Bunny’s ID. The policeman who’d found it said, ‘I think we’d better contact this boy’s family.’
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
The island’s owners, brothers Andrew, James and Peter Buttle, their company Whakaari Management Ltd. and tour operators I.D.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 10, 2023
He returned with my I.D. and a freshly printed ticket, and informed me that I had 15 days to plead not guilty.
From Slate ● Jun. 21, 2023
Mr. Nelson, a bakery worker, said he lost his I.D. and birth certificate in the collapse.
From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2023
The studio motored along, with a new class of top artists such as Jhene Aiko, Lizzo, Marcus Mumford and acclaimed hip-hop producer No I.D. coming through to create.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2023
To reschedule his appointment, I'd had to take his I.D. card to the office.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
Like the first silent performers, the animated Minions are mutely expressive ids designed to play like gangbusters around the globe.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
In the story, that didn’t matter; its currency was “badassery,” a vapid principle many of us worship with our ids.
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2018
Working outside the studio system, often on shoestring budgets and on personal projects, they have more leeway to barf their ids up onto the screen, sometimes with deeply bizarre results.
From The Verge ● Jan. 31, 2018
Late at night, the ids of his callers and guests flash like dorsal fins.
From New York Times ● Sep. 21, 2017
Each id contains the primary constituents of a whole individual, so that several ids are concerned in the development of a new individual.
From Evolution in Modern Thought by August Weismann
Investigators later ID’d a 17-year-old as their suspect.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2025
Rodgers, in a silky double-breasted suit and matching dress shirt that paint-chip enthusiasts might have ID’d as “spilled merlot” or “Miss Havisham’s gate,” was seated just behind Nicholaw.
From New York Times ● Jul. 24, 2023
“Anyone can buy, without being carded or ID’d, a can of Reddi-wip or any other canister of whipped cream,” Addabbo told the AP.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 2, 2022
You’ve been doing it for the last year or so where people are just walking around ID’d as being Facebook contractors and they’re just capturing what they see with sensors on their glasses.
From The Verge ● Nov. 1, 2021
“We ID’d a few of those guys, and we went out and brought those guys in.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 7, 2020
She also ID’ed the man’s hand in the video as her husband’s, according to Newsweek.
From Fox News ● Jul. 15, 2019
The hacker was first ID'ed as a member of LulzSec last month, when private chat logs were leaked to the press.
From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2011
But beware of merely ID’ing a tree, snapping a pic and moving on.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2023
In a tweet sent Wednesday, Scott-Railton said that details surfaced by other online sleuths had led “to high-confidence ID’ing of more troubling characters” and were referred to the FBI.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2021
“As we started ID’ing people,” says Schulte, “we realized there weren’t a lot of people who had moved.”
From Slate ● Jan. 4, 2012
Zachs with an H and Zacks with a K. All these men have lived in my phone contacts, unceremoniously IDed with the last name “Hinge” like ear tags on cattle monitored for progress.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2022
The user also tested it out and found some poor results: “One of my harvestman photos was IDed as a jumping spider, one as a termite, and another one as a crane fly.”
From Slate ● Jul. 9, 2022
New York State plans to approve as many as three casino licenses for the city, and operators and politicians have IDed Times Square as a potential location.
From Slate ● May 26, 2022
Kevin Sheekey, the campaign manager, wrote on Twitter that “3 is the total number of NDAs that have been IDed over thirty+ years pertaining directly” to Mr. Bloomberg.
From New York Times ● Feb. 21, 2020
This must be the vial he’d IDed as Isaac.
From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline
Another study found that PictureThis worked better than other apps at identifying 17 toxic plants, but it still wasn’t exactly great, IDing 59 percent of them correctly.
From Slate ● Jul. 9, 2022
Or are some so insulated that they don’t know you don’t have to start every text by IDing yourself?
From Slate ● Apr. 26, 2018
When campaigns set out to identify voters’ preferences, what canvassers call IDing, they try to reach people on their home phone line or at their doorstep, because that’s where they’re registered to vote.
From Slate ● May 8, 2012
“Without it you were stuck with somehow IDing these voters.”
From Slate ● May 8, 2012
Wallace wound up the piece by IDing Gastroenterologist as a virtuoso response to the blue flow and schizoid flip of the Tube in its own terms.
From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2012
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
