identify
Frequently Asked Questions
- recognize—to be able to tell what something is (and often to know its name), as in He immediately identified/recognized it as a monarch butterfly.
- diagnose or pinpoint, as in My mechanic was finally able to identify/diagnose/pinpoint the problem.
- associate, such as with a certain group or belief, as in She’s known for identifying/associating with the party’s reform wing.
- distinguish, as in Her height identified/distinguished her as the volleyball player.
- establish (who someone is), as in He has been identified/established as the main suspect. Relatedly, to identify someone is to figure out who they are—to establish their identity.
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:
“The strange thing is I don’t identify with Scully in the same way I do with other characters that I played for much less time,” Anderson confesses.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
“The airline has no program or partnership in place to identify or report customers based on immigration status to government agencies.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
It added that the company is conducting its own investigation into the incident in order to "identify the causes of its behavior".
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
Scientists usually identify these systems through visible or measurable evidence at the surface.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026
His job was to identify for BlackRock the bonds that were going to go bad before they went bad.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
In practice, according to the federal judge who’s spent two years staring at how it works, it identifies almost nobody.
From Slate ● Jul. 31, 2026
It works in parallel with the more well-known Prevent scheme, which identifies potential terror offenders.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
While he lost to Hillary Clinton, Sanders’ unabashed argument for Democratic Socialism took flight; though not a formal member, he identifies as a Democratic Socialist.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
The new technique instead identifies chirality directly through ion signals.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 28, 2026
We vault to third place after he correctly identifies a picture of the oldest surviving mosque in America: Cedar Rapids, Iowa, early 1900s.
From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali
His lab identified it years ago as one of the thousands of peptides that act as chemical messengers in the human body, one he believed might someday have therapeutic uses for humans.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
The Marmot Project, which has been running for more than 60 years, is the second-longest study of individually identified mammals in the world, after Jane Goodall's chimpanzee study in Tanzania.
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
The researchers examined a newly identified snake species from Late Cretaceous deposits in southeastern Brazil dating to around 80 million years ago.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026
Over time, her team identified a number of serious deficiencies in the bank’s antifraud program, according to the letter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
Everyone’s eyes focused on a man behind the podium who identified himself as the president of the Rotary Club.
From "Breaking Through" by Francisco Jiménez
“Our detectives never stopped pursuing every lead, and every tip we received brought us one step closer to identifying and apprehending this violent offender.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
After identifying a promising collection of genes from wolfsbane and larkspur, the researchers transferred those genetic instructions into tobacco plants.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 3, 2026
Officials released the two notes on Friday, asking the public for help identifying the writer, whose "distinct linguistic characteristics may be recognisable".
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
Researchers are identifying the biological clues that reveal how well dogs are aging, and developing new ways to help them stay healthier longer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
Still, that doesn't stop them from identifying thirty-seven "organs" of the brain.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
Vocabulary lists containing identify
Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items
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PARCC: Language of the Test (Grade7)
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Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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