What does identify mean?
Identify means to recognize, determine, or establish the identity of a person, object, cause, or category. The word is used when a description, name, distinguishing feature, or piece of evidence allows someone to determine what something is or who is involved. In journalism and official statements, people may be identified as belonging to a group, as having a particular role, or as responsible for an event. The verb can also mean to associate oneself publicly with someone or something, as in identifying with a community or cause. In everyday use, identify often appears with evidence such as a description, a photograph, a fingerprint, a DNA profile, or a distinctive feature. Although it shares a root with identity and identical, identify is specifically an action: it describes the process of recognition or classification.
verbTo recognize or determine the identity of someone or something. It can also mean to associate a particular name, description, or classification with someone or something.
- To recognize or determine the identity of someone or something.
- To describe or classify someone or something by a particular name, characteristic, or category.
- To associate or distinguish a person, group, object, or phenomenon as a particular kind or example.
- To establish or discover the cause, nature, or significance of something.
- To associate oneself closely or publicly with someone or something.
"Witnesses were unable to identify the driver involved in the accident."
"The genetic test helped identify the species of mushroom."
"She was widely identified as the driving force behind the campaign."
To identify something is to strip away uncertainty and give it a name: the word turns the unknown into the known.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does identify come from?
Identify comes from Latin identificare, formed from idem, meaning "the same," and facere, meaning "to make" or "to do." The sense developed from making something the same as or identifying it with something else, and the word entered English during the 17th century. Its relatives include identity, identical, and identification, all based on the same Latin root.
Related word forms
How identify is actually used
The word is common in formal and informal English. In its final sense, it can imply a public association that may or may not be accurate, so contexts such as "identified as" should be distinguished from demonstrative or legal identification.
Easily confused with identify
Identify is usually a verb describing the act of recognizing or determining who or what something is, whereas identity is a noun meaning the qualities that establish who or what someone or something is.