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identify

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Identify means to determine who or what someone or something is. (verb)

An example of identify is finding out what species a flower belongs to.
An example of identify is security asking for someone's driver's license to find out if they are over 21.

Identify means to put oneself in another's place or sympathize with someone. (verb)

An example of identify is a woman watching a movie and feeling the pain felt by a woman character in the movie.

See identify in Webster's New World College Dictionary

transitive verb identified, identifying

to make identical; consider or treat as the same: to identify one's interests with another's
to recognize as being or show to be the very person or thing known, described, or claimed; fix the identity of: to identify a biological specimen
to connect, associate, or involve closely: to identify a person with a school of thought
Psychoanalysis to make an identification of (oneself) with someone else: often used absolutely

intransitive verb

to put oneself in another's place, so as to understand and share the other's thoughts, feelings, problems, etc.; sympathize (with)

Related Forms:

identifiable adjective
identifier noun

See identify in American Heritage Dictionary 4

(ī-dĕnˈtə-fīˌ)

verb i·den·ti·fied, i·den·ti·fy·ing, i·den·ti·fies

verb, transitive

To establish the identity of.
To ascertain the origin, nature, or definitive characteristics of.
Biology To determine the taxonomic classification of (an organism).
To consider as identical or united; equate.
To associate or affiliate (oneself) closely with a person or group.

verb, intransitive

To establish an identification with another or others.

Related Forms:

i·denˌti·fiˈa·ble adjective

i·denˌti·fiˈa·bly adverb

i·denˈti·fiˌer noun

Usage Note: In the sense “to associate or affiliate (oneself) closely with a person or group,” identify suggests a psychological empathy with the feelings or experiences of another person, as in Most young readers of The Catcher in the Rye will readily identify (or identify themselves) with Holden Caulfield. This usage derives originally from psychoanalytic writing, where it has a specific technical meaning, but like other terms from that field, it was widely regarded as jargon when introduced into wider use. In particular, some critics seized on the fact that in this sense the verb was often used intransitively, with no reflexive pronoun. In recent years, however, this use of identify with without the reflexive has become standard and may have become even more conventional than the reflexive construction. Eighty-two percent of the Usage Panel accepts the sentence I find it hard to identify with any of his characters, whereas only 63 percent now accepts this same usage when the reflexive pronoun is used, as in I find it hard to identify myself with any of his characters.

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