identity
‘sameness’
Lexical development traced from the Tamil root:
E. identitie < F. identité < Med.Lat. identitatem ‘sameness’ < Lat. idem ‘the same’ < id ‘it, that one’ + demonstrative suffix -dem < (pronominal stem of the third person) i- < aiden < Tamil āṉ
Semantic Evolution: According to John Ayto, the Latin pronoun idem ‘same’ was used in English for referring to a previously cited author or text, which later formed the basis of Late Latin identitās ‘sameness.’ Thus, the main meaning of its English descendant identity ‘individuality, set of definitive characteristics’ has arisen from the same notion.