identity meaning and definition

IDENTITY noun

Definition of identity (noun)

1. the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity
   • "you can lose your identity when you join the army"
   • synonyms: individuality, personal identity
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"
3. an operator that leaves unchanged the element on which it operates
   • "the identity under numerical multiplication is 1"
   • synonyms: identity element, identity operator
4. exact sameness
   • "they shared an identity of interests"
   • synonyms: identicalness, indistinguishability