Synonyms

identify

American

[ahy-den-tuh-fahy, ih-den-] / aɪˈdɛn təˌfaɪ, ɪˈdɛn- /

verb (used with object)

to recognize or establish as being a particular person or thing; verify the identity of.

to identify handwriting; to identify the bearer of a check.

Synonyms:

determine, know, place, distinguish
to serve as a means of identification for.

His gruff voice quickly identified him.
to make, represent to be, or regard or treat as the same or identical.

They identified Jones with the progress of the company.
to associate in name, feeling, interest, action, etc. (usually followed bywith ).

He preferred not to identify himself with that group.
Biology. to determine to what group (a given specimen) belongs.
Psychology. to associate (one or oneself ) with another person or a group of persons by identification.

verb (used without object)

to associate oneself in feeling, interest, action, etc., with a specified group or belief system (usually followed by as orwith ).

He identifies as bisexual. She identifies with feminism. My family identifies Hispanic.
to experience psychological identification.

The audience identified with the play's characters.

identify British

/ aɪˈdɛntɪˌfaɪ /

verb

to prove or recognize as being a certain person or thing; determine the identity of
to consider as the same or equivalent
to consider (oneself) as similar to another
to determine the taxonomic classification of (a plant or animal)
psychol to engage in identification

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of identify

First recorded in 1635–45; from Medieval Latin identificāre, equivalent to identi(tās) identity + -ficāre -fy

Explanation

You might identify a Ming dynasty vase, a suspect in a bank robbery, or an ivory-billed woodpecker. Whatever it is, when you recognize the identity of someone or something, you identify it. The word identify is easy to...well...identify when you notice how much it looks like the word identity (a noun, meaning who or what something is). Only one consonant separates the two words in spelling ("f" vs. "t"), and they are close relatives in meaning as well. You can easily remember the meaning of identify, a verb, when you recognize that it’s just a way to express the act of establishing identity — in other words, saying who or what something is.

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

identify identifies identified identifying

Lawyers for Rockstar said there was nothing in the signatures that could identify them as union members, but Oram told the tribunal it could be "inferred" who was by those who handed in the petition.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

"Knowing what medications you are taking, when they were started, and for what indication is important in order to identify possible prescribing cascades that may be problematic."

From Science Daily ● Sep. 11, 2026

There are pockets of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Fiji where some even identify as descendants from one of the "Lost Tribes of Israel".

From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026

The cases of concern detected over the past eight months ranged from fake dating apps and hotel Wifi scams, to surveillance built to identify dissidents.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

Thanks to his new glasses, Roosevelt could now identify birds by sight, and not just by hearing them.

From "Death on the River of Doubt" by Samantha Seiple

While mothering her two teenagers, one of them newly identifies as nonbinary — “It was Laurel’s job to not make a big deal about this” — she obsesses about her husband’s questionable fidelity.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026

The images showed that RNA polymerase identifies the synthetic DNA letters using many of the same biochemical and structural signals it relies on to recognize natural base pairs.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 5, 2026

India's Central Water Commission identifies the Kosi, Gandak, Bagmati and Ghaghara as some of the main transboundary rivers.

From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026

This vaccine is different: A surgeon removes the tumor and sends it to a lab, where its mutations are sequenced and an algorithm identifies the targets for a personalized mRNA vaccine.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

We vault to third place after he correctly identifies a picture of the oldest surviving mosque in America: Cedar Rapids, Iowa, early 1900s.

From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali

Anthropic said it also identified a Chinese-government aligned operation that used Claude to track and surveil Uyghurs—an ethnic minority primarily based in Western China.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

Anthropic says it has identified and disrupted attempts to use its AI model for "malicious activity" that could support biological and conventional weapons development.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

But the firm has also identified industries it sees as potentially becoming beneficiaries of the technology.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026

The researchers identified this pattern as a new bioarchaeological marker linked to a previously unrecognized behavior: repeatedly sucking whole betel nuts.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026

Phillip seemed to have identified the problem exactly.

From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley

"The individuals implicated in these case studies are working scientists. We do not assert that they intended harm, and identifying them or their labs could expose them to harm," the report said.

From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026

"Our study highlights the critical role of in situ characterization in identifying dynamic active structures under reaction conditions," said Prof. Liu.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 9, 2026

Lantz confirmed all five people involved in the crash were adults but was unable to share further identifying information.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026

If the customer is looking for a large-scale transformation—like reinventing its finance group around AI—the Accenture pod starts by identifying which processes AI can actually reinvent and the order in which they should be tackled.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026

The terrier would carry no identifying marks, either, as he had been registered in England.

From "The Incredible Journey" by Sheila Burnford

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023