identify
Americanverb (used with object)
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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
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to serve as a means of identification for.
His gruff voice quickly identified him.
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to make, represent to be, or regard or treat as the same or identical.
They identified Jones with the progress of the company.
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to associate in name, feeling, interest, action, etc. (usually followed bywith ).
He preferred not to identify himself with that group.
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Biology. to determine to what group (a given specimen) belongs.
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Psychology. to associate (one or oneself ) with another person or a group of persons by identification.
verb (used without object)
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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.
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to experience psychological identification.
The audience identified with the play's characters.
verb
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to prove or recognize as being a certain person or thing; determine the identity of
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to consider as the same or equivalent
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to consider (oneself) as similar to another
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to determine the taxonomic classification of (a plant or animal)
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psychol to engage in identification
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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identifiabilitynoun
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identifiablenessnoun
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identifiernoun
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overidentifyverb
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preidentifyverb (used with object)
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reidentifyverb (used with object)
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identifiableadjective
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unidentifiableadjective
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unidentifiedadjective
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unidentifyingadjective
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well-identifiedadjective
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identifiablyadverb
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unidentifiablyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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identifysimple
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identifiessimple
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have identifiedperfect
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has identifiedperfect
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am identifyingprogressive
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are identifyingprogressive
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is identifyingprogressive
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have been identifyingperfect progressive
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has been identifyingperfect progressive
Past
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identifiedsimple
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had identifiedperfect
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was identifyingprogressive
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were identifyingprogressive
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had been identifyingperfect progressive
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.
Vocabulary lists containing identify
Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items
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PARCC: Language of the Test (Grade7)
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Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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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:
So he encourages people to identify the relationships in their lives that already make them feel safe and understood, and to use them "as a vehicle for becoming more secure overall".
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
Images from the European Union’s Sentinel-2 Earth observation satellite showed flaring at the plant, but the official Saudi statement didn’t identify Abqaiq as a target of the attack.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Brandon Nelson of Calamos Investments and his colleagues seek to identify small-cap companies with a “unique edge” allowing them to widen their profit margins as they increase revenue quickly.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
She says the app has come a long way since it first launched in the US in 2014, with machine learning systems which could identify 285 common bird species from photos.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The fish bone fragments would be sent to a lab where they could hopefully identify the specific species of fish, giving clues to the shark’s whereabouts.
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
They may also insist on being called by their Playa name, something like “Dirty Rizz,” even though their driver’s license identifies them as Derwin.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
The antecedent of the opinion’s only masculine pronoun is a hypothetical “biological male who identifies as male,” and the hypothetical counterpart who “identifies as female” gets no pronoun.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
The strategy identifies healthier eating as one of its priorities.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
The research also identifies the types of stars most likely to host them.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 10, 2026
Over the course of twenty-five such trials, the subject correctly identifies the symbol ten times.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
The Ballinderry Rivers Trust said they have identified and have been treating a source of giant hogweed just outside Cookstown.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
In Poland's 2021 census, 71 percent of the population identified as Roman Catholic, down from 88 percent 10 years earlier.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
The remains were identified as those of the Ohio architect, his fiancee, her sister and a female cousin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026
When the team analyzed the samples in Krabbenhoft's laboratory, they identified more than 19,000 structural variants in the brown tree snake genome.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
I’d never been invited to gymnastics camp at Bela and Martha Karolyi’s sprawling ranch in Huntsville, which meant I hadn’t been identified as a possible candidate for a spot on the USAG’s national team.
From "Courage to Soar" by Simone Biles
"I'm identifying people's needs, especially those of the children, and reminding them about the signs of dehydration," said Marie Decroix as she moved among the families, jotting down notes.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
The result shows that astronomers can locate worlds by identifying the molecular fingerprints of their atmospheres instead of depending entirely on traditional coronagraphic imaging.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026
I try to edit out any identifying details to protect people’s identities, but that’s just me.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
The method of identifying suspicious accounts United have employed uses third-party software and is largely automated.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Just inside, a note identifying the publisher as R. L. Polk & Co, the name everyone uses when they talk about the compendium of businesses and people.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
