Link Centre Dictionary

identity

iden·tity

UK/aɪˈdɛntɪti/ US/aɪˈdɛn(t)ɪti/ common

noun

1.

the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity

  • “you can lose your identity when you join the army”
Synonyms
2.

the individual characteristics by which a thing or person is recognized or known

  • “geneticists only recently discovered the identity of the gene that causes it”
  • “it was too dark to determine his identity”
  • “she guessed the identity of his lover”
3.

an operator that leaves unchanged the element on which it operates

  • “the identity under numerical multiplication is 1”
Synonyms
4.

exact sameness

  • “they shared an identity of interests”
Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English ydemptite, from Middle French identité and its etymon Late Latin idemptitās, identitās, from idem (“the same”) + -tās (suffix forming abstract nouns) as a calque of Ancient Greek ταὐτότης (tautótēs, “sameness”).

Phrases

  • Abel's identity
  • Abel-Jacobi-Liouville identity
  • age identity
  • amputee identity disorder
  • Bézout's identity
  • body integrity identity disorder
  • Capelli's identity
  • cultural identity

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.