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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

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Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

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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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Vocabulary lists containing identify

Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items

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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

The recalled cars have inner emergency mechanical handles "similar in colour to the interior, making them difficult to identify and operate" in emergencies, the watchdog said.

From Barron's ● Aug. 24, 2026

Seventy-three percent of small-business owners now identify as content creators, according to a June report by Constant Contact, a digital-marketing platform for small businesses.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

The researchers then used those results to train a machine learning system, a form of artificial intelligence, to identify the characteristic DNA pattern associated with the initiator.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 23, 2026

Police initially struggled to identify suspects, as the descriptions given were generic and a detective compiled an error-ridden photo lineup, according to the center.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026

She’d ridden the train often enough to identify it as the best location for this sort of practice.

From "City Spies" by James Ponti

Another trope Hartnett identifies in asset allocation is “Anything But China.”

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 14, 2026

This method divides the temperature record into separate periods and objectively identifies when the rate of warming appears to change.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026

No line item in FLAG’s federal tax filing identifies a payment to a school, a teacher or an educational distributor.

From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026

It works in parallel with the more well-known Prevent scheme, which identifies potential terror offenders.

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

Number 1, a mousy blonde who identifies herself as Marie F, climbs the stairs beside the stage and slouches to a microphone.

From "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" by John Green and David Levithan

She said all construction the GLO had identified has since ended.

From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026

It said legal proceedings had been started in Italy, France and Germany over the case but that "European and national authorities have remained silent" and "those responsible for the attack have not been identified".

From Barron's ● Aug. 24, 2026

“I was like, Oh, my gosh, that’s so pretty; and then I was like, Wait, that’s mine,” says the retired lawyer, who adds that she didn’t have privacy concerns because Trujillo’s posts never identified her.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

They recorded every plant species identified across the meadow and tracked changes within permanent survey plots.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 23, 2026

After she identified a photograph of Roan, she stepped down from the stand and returned to the gallery.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

In her own telling, the HHS general counsel’s office then “provided extensive comments identifying legal issues,” and “some of the findings . . . about protected speech were removed.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

"I would urge anyone who has information that may assist us in identifying the victim and understanding the circumstances of her death to come forward and speak to us."

From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026

By identifying a biological pathway that directly regulates this inflammation, the new findings suggest that future therapies could potentially target liver inflammation alongside existing treatments focused on weight and liver fat.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 21, 2026

However, the state refused to send anything more detailed, as it includes sensitive identifying information like Social Security numbers.

From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026

The small children had names by then, and she recalled walking along the row and reading LIAM, SVETLANA, BARBARA, HENRIK, on the identifying cards.

From "Son" by Lois Lowry

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