Adjacent Words

Identity definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

IDEN'TITY, n. Sameness, as distinguished from similitude and diversity. We speak of the identity of goods found, the identity of persons, or of personal identity.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; "you can lose your identity when you join the army" [syn: identity, personal identity, individuality]
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" [syn: identity, identity element, identity operator]
4: exact sameness; "they shared an identity of interests" [syn: identity, identicalness, indistinguishability]

Merriam Webster's

noun (plural -ties) Etymology: Middle French identité, from Late Latin identitat-, identitas, probably from Latin identidem repeatedly, contraction of idem et idem, literally, same and same Date: 1570 1. a. sameness of essential or generic character in different instances b. sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing ; oneness 2. a. the distinguishing character or personality of an individual ; individuality b. the relation established by psychological identification 3. the condition of being the same with something described or asserted <establish the identity of stolen goods> 4. an equation that is satisfied for all values of the symbols 5. identity element

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (pl. -ies) 1 a the quality or condition of being a specified person or thing. b individuality, personality (felt he had lost his identity). 2 identification or the result of it (a case of mistaken identity; identity card). 3 the state of being the same in substance, nature, qualities, etc.; absolute sameness (no identity of interests between them). 4 Algebra a the equality of two expressions for all values of the quantities expressed by letters. b an equation expressing this, e.g. (x + 1)(2) = x(2) + 2x + 1. 5 Math. a (in full identity element) an element in a set, left unchanged by any operation to it. b a transformation that leaves an object unchanged. Phrases and idioms: identity crisis a phase in which an individual feels a need to establish an identity in relation to society. identity parade = identification parade. Etymology: LL identitas f. L idem same

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Identity I*den"ti*ty, n.; pl. Identities. [F. identit['e], LL. identitas, fr. L. idem the same, from the root of is he, that; cf. Skr. idam this. Cf. Item.] 1. The state or quality of being identical, or the same; sameness. Identity is a relation between our cognitions of a thing, not between things themselves. --Sir W. Hamilton. 2. The condition of being the same with something described or asserted, or of possessing a character claimed; as, to establish the identity of stolen goods. 3. (Math.) An identical equation.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(identities) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. Your identity is who you are. Abu is not his real name, but it's one he uses to disguise his identity... N-COUNT: with poss 2. The identity of a person or place is the characteristics they have that distinguish them from others. I wanted a sense of my own identity. N-VAR: usu with supp, oft with poss, adj N

Moby Thesaurus

accord, accordance, affinity, agape, agreement, alikeness, alliance, amity, analogy, aping, approach, approximation, assimilation, balance, bonds of harmony, brotherly love, caritas, cement of friendship, charity, closeness, coequality, coextension, combination, communion, community, community of interests, comparability, comparison, compatibility, concord, concordance, conformity, congeniality, congruence, copying, correspondence, credo, creed, differentiation, differentness, distinctiveness, egohood, empathy, equality, equation, equilibrium, equipoise, equipollence, equiponderance, equity, equivalence, equivalency, esprit, esprit de corps, evenness, feeling of identity, fellow feeling, fellowship, frictionlessness, fusion, good vibes, good vibrations, happy family, harmony, human factor, ideology, imitation, indistinguishability, individualism, individuality, indivisibility, intactness, integrality, integration, integrity, inviolability, irreducibility, justice, kinship, levelness, like-mindedness, likeness, likening, love, metaphor, mimicking, mutuality, nearness, nominalism, nonconformity, oneness, organic unity, outlook, par, parallelism, parity, particularism, particularity, peace, personal equation, personal identity, personality, personship, philosophy, poise, proportion, purity, rapport, rapprochement, reciprocity, resemblance, sameness, self-identity, selfhood, selfness, selfsameness, semblance, sharing, similarity, simile, similitude, simplicity, simulation, singleness, singularity, solidarity, solidification, solidity, soul, symmetry, sympathy, symphony, team spirit, unanimity, understanding, undividedness, unification, uniformity, union, uniqueness, unison, unity, univocity, view, weltanschauung, wholeness