identity

noun

1. the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity

- you can lose your identity when you join the army

Similar word(s): individuality

Definition categories: attribute, personality

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

Definition categories: thought, identification, recognition

3. an operator that leaves unchanged the element on which it operates

- the identity under numerical multiplication is 1

Definition categories: link, operator

4. exact sameness

- they shared an identity of interests

Similar word(s): identicalness, indistinguishability

Definition categories: attribute, sameness