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.
Even Sigmund Freud’s conception of a wild, uninhibited id struggling against the superego was influenced by the emerging discipline of brain science—specifically, the Scottish neurologist and psychologist David Ferrier’s theory of inhibition.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Guy and Bruno constitute the two halves of a single personality, the yin and the yang, the superego and the id.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
He meets Janine, his equal in appetite and id, sending him into a tailspin of yearning and loops of Sky Ferreira’s “Everything Is Embarrassing” on sadboi walks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 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
There were soldiers everywhere, dressed in fatigues, and there were civilian scientists and technicians wearing id badges.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
The voter ID measure is opposed by 55% of likely voters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
Customers will be able to choose ID apps from a range of suppliers such as the Post Office, Yoti or Luciditi, provided they are on a government-approved list.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
The apps will also need to guard against customers borrowing devices from older friends and relatives, and ensure the ID app belongs to the person using it.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
I’m the executor of the estate and am in the process of obtaining a tax ID to open an estate bank account.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 7, 2026
I don’t know much about health insurance, but I know that my Social Security number is my ID number, so I put that down.
From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini
"I'd had a lot of calls that day from people who cared, who were stunned... and I just felt there was a lightness in his tone about Diana's death that really jarred with me."
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026
One young man observed that even the way I’d characterized the change in Bitcoin’s price as a loss of value was unnecessarily pessimistic.
From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2026
None, I’d argue — so long as that filmmaker can present either side of said debate with as much tact as the other.
From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2026
“But then I’d ask, ‘Are you gonna patronize us, or just run through?’
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
I never liked when Grandma said that, because it usually meant I’d never get the answer.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
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
O. N, skjól, shelter, cover, refuge, Norse skjul, skjol, pron. shul, shol, Dan. skjul, id., skjule, to conceal.
From Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch by George Tobias Flom
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
See Damiron, Id. ii. 256-376.541.On the old coteries of Rambouillet, &c., see Hallam's Hist. of Literature, iii.
From History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion by Adam Storey Farrar
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 a characteristic letter by Sherman on this subject, Id., vol. xxxi. pt. i. p.
From Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 1 April 1861-November 1863 by Jacob Dolson Cox
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
Longfellow said, “You already gave me an ID. If it’s fake, you fix it. The Pope is dead, let me mourn.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2025
“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
Volkswagen rolled out five ID. series electric models in China, the world’s biggest car market, this year.
From Reuters ● Sep. 23, 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
They pointed out the injustice of being charged for threatening police, when they regularly felt threatened by police I.D. checks.
From New York Times ● Jul. 4, 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
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
Still he ignored me, so I asked for his I.D.
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
The industry is on a journey and there will be browser-based proposals that do not need individual user ids and ID-based proposals that are based on consent and first party relationships.
From The Verge ● Apr. 16, 2021
Late at night, the ids of his callers and guests flash like dorsal fins.
From New York Times ● Sep. 21, 2017
After bottling up their ids all day, some people let it out in antisocial ways: polishing off the coffee without making more.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2016
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
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
SAT Taste apples and other fall fruits and learning about growing them, get your mystery apples ID’d, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 20, 2016
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
“Without it you were stuck with somehow IDing these voters.”
From Slate ● May 8, 2012
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
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
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.
