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
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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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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:
"By combining non-invasive genetic monitoring with sett surveys, camera traps and movement data, we can estimate local badger numbers, check the proportion of the population reached and identify significant gaps," he added.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
The department is now “moving faster and more aggressively than ever to identify, disrupt, and penalize any institution or intermediary that continues to enable business with the Iranian regime.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026
“Back then, there were no forms on campus, or applying for college, that had an opportunity for me to identify as Jewish, even though I was being identified by other people that way.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2026
The department didn’t identify the adults or the child, but said the two adults were married, and the boy was their biological child.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026
No one pursued him when he fled the scene and no one at the Seward house saw or could identify him.
From "Chasing Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson
India's Central Water Commission identifies the Kosi, Gandak, Bagmati and Ghaghara as some of the main transboundary rivers.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
Are you feeling the budgetary pressures that Gartner identifies?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
The Elecsys Phospho-Tau Plasma test identifies amyloid pathology associated with Alzheimer’s in people 55 years or older.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
"The significance of this work is that it identifies a mechanism by which a microbiota-derived metabolite can create durable epithelial T-cell crosstalk," Yu said.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 21, 2026
However, when the scene is reenacted many times under comparable lighting conditions by a court investigating the case, the victim correctly identifies the race of the assailant only about 80 percent of the time.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
Two data analytics services, Apptimize and Localytics, were identified as third parties with access to the sensitive data.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
In an earlier statement Monday, JLR identified management roles as those at risk, while local media reports said most of the cuts would be in the UK.
From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026
DeFlock, an anti-surveillance watchdog that has mapped the locations of Flock cameras using verified crowdsourcing, has identified about 13,000 in the state.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026
In 2024 alone, the Treasury identified about $9 billion in Iranian funds that moved through U.S. lenders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026
First, it tells me it has identified the language.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
Lopez signed her daughter up for state-funded day care, identifying herself as a noncitizen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
Scientists have managed to compare the fine detail of the brains of male and female flies for the first time, identifying differences they say explain male aggression, courtship and their singing of love songs.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
Under the proposed system, state election authorities would upload lists of mail voters and identifying barcodes to a new federal portal.
From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026
Suno’s platform uses a “distillation of the identifying attributes of the human beings who made the songs and recordings: the qualities that make a listener say ‘that is Jason Isbell.’”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
For Geisbert, identifying hot strains and classifying the tribes of viruses was like sorting butterflies or collecting flowers.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
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.
