Identity - Definition

n 1: the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a
persisting entity; "you can lose your identity when you
join the army" [syn: identity, personal identity,
individuality]
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"
[syn: identity, identity element, identity operator]
4: exact sameness; "they shared an identity of interests" [syn:
identity, identicalness, indistinguishability]