id.

1. 1
   nounacronym

   Acronym of identity document.

   Note

   Although it is built from initials, it now behaves as an ordinary noun. The plural is IDs, and it works attributively in compounds such as ID card. It is normally written in capitals without periods, and that spelling keeps it visually apart from the citation abbreviation.

2. 2
   nounabbreviation

   Abbreviation of identification.

   Dental records finally allowed investigators to make a positive id.

   Field log, May 3: large gray heron at the reservoir, id. confirmed by a second observer.

   Note

   Most often it records the act of naming who or what something is: investigators making a positive id, or an observer confirming which bird was seen. Because identification can also mean the papers that prove who you are, this sense shades into the identity-document sense whenever the talk turns to cards and passports.

3. 3
   nounabbreviation

   Abbreviation of identifier.

   Note

   In software and data work, it is the name or value that singles one thing out from every other within its scope. That thing might be a variable or function in source code, a user or process in an operating system, or an element in a document. Because it is meant to be unique, a lookup by id should match exactly one record or fail outright.

4. 4
   adverbabbreviation

   Abbreviation of idem, used in a citation to indicate the same work cited just before.

   Id. at 215 confirms the court's earlier reasoning on jurisdiction.

   For the underlying statistics, see id., table three.

   Note

   Legal and scholarly citation's shorthand for pointing back: idem is Latin for "the same," and the abbreviation sends the reader to the authority named just before. It is usually followed by a new location, as in Id. at 215. Keep it distinct from ibid., which marks the very same passage, whereas this one marks the same source at a fresh place.

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