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nonidentity

nonidentity

9.9
A situation where two or more things are different
  • noun
  • /ˌnɒn.aɪˈdɛntɪti/
translation icon : no identidad
  • The artist explored nonidentity by contrasting various styles and techniques in her work.

Examples

  • The study highlighted nonidentity as a crucial factor in understanding the relationship between different cultures.

  • Asked about the elaborate technique directed at avoiding first-person narration of the obviously autobiographical, Christa Wolf describes her sense of alienation from her former self, a nonidentity that could be expressed only through the use of the third person.

    Academic text (1992)
  • Yet this nonidentity belongs to what the church is and how Christians exist.

    Academic text (2008)
  • The account of Pentecost in Acts 2 cues theology on the meaning of the difference, the nonidentity, in missions.

    Academic text (2008)
  • This is the otherness and nonidentity that makes the painting into a privileged aesthetic object in Gates's hands, into truly private property.

    Academic text (2002)
  • What Reinhardt stages is an artful ruse, his moving from identity toward nonidentity.

    Academic text (2014)
  • This is the paradoxical passage by which the newness of nonidentity emerges from the regiment of identity.

    Academic text (2014)
  • He recognizes three possible relationships: identity, similarity-in-difference, or pure nonidentity. But he offers no guidelines as to how that conversation is to be conducted and how it is to progress.

    Academic text (1991)
  • It is precisely Reinhardt's famous tautology, art-as-art, that both states an identity and frames an experience of nonidentity.

    Academic text (2014)
  • It is this relationship of nonidentity, somewhere between parasitic and symbiotic, which Beckett and Nauman force their characters to endure with every recurrence?

    Academic text (1998)

Synonyms

dissimilarity
vsnonidentity
3 4.5

A state when two things or people are not alike

is identical in sense but is a different lexical choice
differentness
vsnonidentity
1 6.3

The fact that two things are not the same

is the same idea but presented as an alternative word form
distinctness
vsnonidentity
1 5.6

Being clearly different from others

focuses on general lack of sameness rather than clarity of separation
dissimilitude
vsnonidentity
9.9

A clear difference between two or more things

is the same meaning but uses an alternative word form
unsimilarity
vsnonidentity
9.0

A difference that shows two or more things are not the same

is the same idea but appears as a different word form
distinguishability
vsnonidentity
8.1

How easy it is to see that something is different from others

refers to difference itself rather than the ability to notice it
disparateness
vsnonidentity
9.2

A big difference between things that are not similar

expresses a general difference without stressing complete or absolute change
nonequivalence
vsnonidentity
8.9

A situation where two things are not the same or cannot replace each other

indicates difference in identity rather than lack of interchangeability
incommutability
vsnonidentity
9.9

A situation where something cannot be exchanged for something else

focuses on being different in identity rather than on exchange capability

How Different

difference
1.0
nonidentity
9.9
similarity
157 2.7
identity
660 3.2

Surface Forms

nonidentity singular
nonidentities plural

Morphology

nonidentity = identity (transparent) = non + identity

The meaning is directly derived from the productive negative prefix 'non-' plus the noun 'identity', so learners can infer 'not identity' or 'lack of sameness'.

Etymology

Nonidentity begins with non- meaning 'not' and ends with identity, which means 'sameness' or 'who someone is' and is the same root you see in identical. So nonidentity simply means being 'not the same', a clear way to remember it is that it points to a difference between two things.