identical

Pluralidenticals

1. 1
   adjective

   Exactly alike, having all the same features, so that one cannot be told apart from the other.

   The forger produced a signature identical to the one on the original deed.

   Both engines were built to identical specifications in the same factory.

   Similarsame, matching, indistinguishable, duplicate, twin

   Oppositedifferent, dissimilar, distinct, unlike

   Note

   The everyday sense describes two or more things that match in every feature: printing plates, mass-produced chairs, the two cells a dividing zygote makes. It takes either to or with (identical with the one my mom bought). Strictly it is not comparable, because nothing is more identical than identical. That is why the looser 'nearly equal' use reads as a stretch.

2. 2
   adjective

   Being one and the same; the very same thing rather than merely a similar or separate one.

   Investigators established that the two ledger entries pointed to one identical account.

   The author and the mysterious reviewer proved to be the identical man.

   Similarsame, selfsame, very

   Oppositedifferent, separate, distinct

   Note

   Here there are not two matching things but one thing met twice. After the, it works like very: Dickens's coal-merchant is "the identical man" who laughed loudest in the pit. Historians use identical with to merge two names into one person, as when a Guntram is judged identical with a Count Guntram. Unlike the 'exactly alike' sense, nothing here is a copy. It is what philosophers call numerical identity.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of twins, developed from a single fertilized egg and sharing the same genetic code.

   Researchers studied identical siblings to separate the effects of genes from upbringing.

   Because the brothers were identical, even close relatives mixed them up.

   Similarmonozygotic

   Oppositefraternal, dizygotic

   Note

   Biologists use it for monozygotic twins. One zygote divides after fertilization, so the pair carry essentially the same DNA and are always the same sex. It almost always comes in the fixed pairing identical twins, set against fraternal twins, who may be a boy and a girl. Clipped into a noun, it gives the twin itself.

4. 4
   adjective

   Exactly equivalent, having the same value or form in every respect.

   The two functions are identical wherever both are defined.

   Rewriting the formula showed that the cost models were identical.

   Similarequivalent, equal

   Oppositedifferent, unequal

   Note

   Mathematics uses it for an equality that holds for every admissible value of the variables, not just at the points that solve an equation. That is what separates an identity from an ordinary equation. The qualifier often matters, as in identical wherever both are defined, because outside that range the claim may fail.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A twin who shares the same genetic code as their sibling.

   As an identical, he could pass for his brother on the phone with ease.

   Researchers compared identicals with fraternals to see how much of the trait was inherited.

   Oppositefraternal

   Note

   A clipping of identical twin, at home where twins are compared in research. Its partner is fraternals. Woodworth and Marquis's Psychology observes that fraternal pairs are boy-girl as often as same-sex, while identicals are necessarily of the same sex. The plural is the regular identicals, and the biology behind it belongs to the twin adjective.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A thing that shares exactly the same properties as another, with no difference between them.

   He argued that no genuine identical of an object can be found anywhere in nature.

   If two particles are perfect identicals, what could possibly make them two and not one?

   Similarduplicate, double, twin, replica, copy

   Note

   Philosophers use this noun, mostly in the plural: identicals are things that share every property. The puzzle it raises is the identity of indiscernibles, the principle that two things alike in every respect would really be one thing. The word therefore tends to turn up where that principle is being tested.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A rhyme in which the rhyming syllable is exactly the same sound, such as 'leave' and 'believe'.

   The poet leaned on an identical, pairing a word with its own near-echo for effect.

   Strict editors flagged the stanza's identicals and asked for sharper rhymes instead.

   Note

   Versification uses it for a rhyme on exactly the same sound, as in leave and believe. It is often judged weaker than a rhyme whose opening consonants differ. Holman and Harmon's A Handbook to Literature (1992) raises it where strict forms demand repeated end-words, noting that "some license is granted in the use of identicals."

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