identity

Plural: identities

Noun

• The unique character or essential qualities of a person or thing.
• the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity
  • "you can lose your identity when you join the army"
• 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"
• an operator that leaves unchanged the element on which it operates
  • "the identity under numerical multiplication is 1"
• exact sameness
  • "they shared an identity of interests"
• Sameness, identicalness; the quality or fact of (several specified things) being the same.
• The difference or character that marks off an individual or collective from the rest of the same kind; selfhood; the sense of who something or someone or oneself is, or the recurring characteristics that enable the recognition of such an individual or group by others or themselves.
• A name or persona—a mask or appearance one presents to the world—by which one is known.
• An equation which always holds true regardless of the choice of input variables.
• Any function which maps all elements of its domain to themselves.
• An element of an algebraic structure which, when applied to another element under an operation in that structure, yields this second element.
• A well-known or famous person.

Examples

• Each letter tile has its own identity and value, crucial for strategic Words With Friends plays.
• I've been through so many changes, I have no sense of identity.
• In this show, the competitor's identity will remain secret until after the vote.
• The equation (x+y)(x−y) = x²−y² is an algebraic identity. It is true regardless of the values of x and y.
• This criminal has taken on several identities.
• This nation has a strong identity.
• Zero is the identity for the addition of real numbers.

Synonyms

identicalness, identity element, identity operator, indistinguishability, individuality, personal identity, beinghood, celebrity, identity, identity function, ipseity, personality, personhood, personness, sameliness, sameness, selfdom, selfhood, selfness, selfship, uniformity

Related Words

identic, identical, identification, identify