Identic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Exactly the same in content and wording, especially when applied to matching diplomatic notes or formal documents issued by different parties
2. Precisely alike in every detail, used particularly of official texts that two or more governments present in the same form
3. Describing things that correspond exactly, most often in diplomacy, where separate parties deliver the same formal message

Etymology: "Identic" is an older English adjective meaning exactly the same, and its ancestry runs through a Latin pronoun that was already doing this job. Latin "idem" meant "the same," and it was built from the pronoun "is" ("he, that") combined with a particle "-dem," a pairing that gave the Latin language a neat way to say "that very one." From "idem," medieval Latin scholars coined "identicus," and French took that into "identique," which carried the sense of sameness into the language. English borrowed the French form, so "identic" reached the language as a learned word with a clear, logical sense: two things that are one and the same. Its close relative "identical" became far more common and is the form most readers meet today. "Identic" survives mainly in specialist and legal contexts, where it is used to describe texts or documents that are the same in substance.

Synonyms: identical

Antonyms: different