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:
"Since this weekend, our teams have taken immediate action to identify and remove listings linked to the looting, and we have stepped up monitoring of suspicious listings," Vinted told the BBC.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
Under the law, government agencies must identify and reduce harms of projects, and seek public input.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026
In a paper titled “Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World,” University of Pennsylvania economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and Northwestern economics researcher Patrick Norrick crunch demographic data to identify trends in population across the globe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
These analyses, known as meta-analyses, combine findings from numerous individual studies to identify broader patterns.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 17, 2026
“You’re also going to need an expert entomologist. Someone who can identify all the insects.”
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said endometriosis can have a "devastating impact" on women's lives and said the government's renewed Women's Health Strategy identifies it as a priority condition.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
One of those wrongly identified was a Chinese American whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as a New York-based finance professional who graduated from Cornell University in 2020 -- four years before the alleged rape.
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026
The system identifies whether an enemy drone may be vulnerable to electronic warfare and executes a defense accordingly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
The study also identifies technologies that might help overcome some of the obstacles revealed by the calculations.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 10, 2026
A senior at a small private high school, the teenager identifies as agender—neither male nor female.
From "The 57 Bus" by Dashka Slater
The media members have yet to be identified.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026
In the court documents, several are referred to as "unknown male child" and identified by the location of their grave and date of their discovery.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
Arsenal's summer was dominated by talk of their search for an elite forward, with the left wing one of the positions identified.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026
AEI has identified 38 colleges and programs that have since cut their published prices or announced they are boosting scholarships and discounts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
In the 1940s and 1950s, Avery, Watson, and Crick identified DNA as the gene molecule, and described its structure as a double helix—thereby bringing the anatomical conception of the gene to its natural culmination.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
By identifying DEAF1 as an important regulator, researchers have uncovered a potential target for therapies designed to improve muscle maintenance and recovery.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026
I taped over pictures of myself and put away anything with personal information, so that Tau Robotics’ bipedal robots wouldn’t collect any identifying data.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
Bennett explained that "a certain evidential threshold" had to be reached before identifying individuals online, but said as a council they did not want to "shy away" from the problem.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
Near the exhibit’s end, Philips van den Bossche’s panoramic 1606 print of Prague highlights the city’s towers, spires and bridges, with its ledger identifying the Cathedral of St. Vitus in particular.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
The girls marked and boxed items sought and put down their total and their own identifying number on the top of the front page.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
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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