Identifies

How to spell identifies

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce identifies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does identifies mean?

1. verbRecognises, names, or establishes who or what someone or something is (third person singular present).

Identifies in a sentence

• The software identifies each user by their fingerprint.

• The report identifies three main causes of the delay.

Where does identifies come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin idem, meaning simply 'the same', which gave rise to the late Latin noun identitas for the quality of being one and the same thing. From identitas English took 'identity' in the 1500s, and from the same root scholars built the verb 'identify' in the 1600s, originally meaning 'to treat a thing as being the same as another' or 'to establish what something is'. The form 'identifies' is the ordinary third person singular present of that verb, used when a single subject does the recognising. The middle of the word still carries the idea of sameness: to identify someone is, at heart, to match them with a known sameness. A useful spelling cue is the run of unstressed vowels, the 'i' after 'ident' and the soft middle syllable, which is where many writers stumble.

How the word is built

• ident- (from Latin idem: the same)
• -ify (to make)
• -es (third person singular present)