identify
Americanverb (used with object)
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identifies,
present (3rd person singular)
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identified,
past participle, past
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identifying
present participle
-
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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identifies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
identified,
past participle, past
-
identifying
present participle
-
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:
“But we hire people in those roles to prevent and to identify problems. So you really want someone that has the right type of experience to be able to do that effectively.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 26, 2026
One auto repair shop, which its owner asked that I not identify, looked closed, though it was still open.
From Slate ● Oct. 26, 2026
For the team I'm with, this is a jigsaw waiting to be pieced together and solved as they try to identify the criminal culprits.
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026
Asked what crime justified federal intervention, Blanche struggled to identify one.
From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2026
The professors took Leah’s opinion seriously and asked the spirits to identify any “resistors” by rapping.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
The property dates to 2018, and the listing also identifies one garage space.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026
The 47 executions nationwide last year were the most since 2009, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, or DPI, which takes no position on capital punishment but criticizes problems it identifies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
Although further research is needed to determine whether such treatments would benefit older adults experiencing cognitive decline, the discovery identifies a potentially valuable therapeutic target.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 17, 2026
A couple of points about that: First, Solana identifies himself in his Free Press bio as “mayor of San Francisco.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
MacGyver always identifies his enemy’s big weakness first.
From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau
She knew there was language and a body of research that plainly identified and unpacked what can otherwise be a head-spinning distortion of reality.
From Salon ● Oct. 26, 2026
By comparison, it identified less than $50,000 in spending on AI-generated ads in the 2024 election cycle.
From Barron's ● Oct. 26, 2026
However, questions remain about whether the scale of accommodation currently identified will be sufficient.
From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2026
The newly identified object orbits this brown dwarf, creating a remarkable arrangement in which a massive satellite circles an object that itself revolves around a star.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2026
By the early 1940s, biochemists had broken cells apart to reveal their chemical constituents and identified various molecules in living systems—but the molecule that carried the code of heredity was still unknown.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Mounted on a vehicle dashboard, the app automatically takes a photograph every 10 seconds, identifying visible litter and grading it against a national standard before uploading the information.
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026
Research on cash transfers is encouraging, Wolfolds said, but "the harder challenge may be identifying who has been affected by AI."
From Barron's ● Oct. 26, 2026
As scientists begin identifying more satellites in distant planetary systems, they may discover that familiar distinctions between stars, planets, and moons are not as universal as once assumed.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2026
“Anthropic ran roughshod over the rights of countless creatives and rightsholders,” the lawsuit charged, “using their works without permission, removing identifying information from those works, and keeping ill-gotten gains for itself.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2026
In 1943, members of the Dutch Resistance bombed the Amsterdam civil registry office in an attempt to destroy records, to prevent the Nazis from identifying Jews and others marked for persecution, arrest or forced labour.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
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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.
