nonidentifiability
|non-i-den-ti-fi-a-bi-li-ty|
🇺🇸
/ˌnɑnˌaɪˌdɛntɪfəˈbɪlɪti/
🇬🇧
/ˌnɒnˌaɪˌdɛntɪfəˈbɪlɪti/
not able to be identified
Etymology
'nonidentifiability' originates from English, specifically formed by the negative prefix 'non-' plus 'identifiability', where 'non-' meant 'not' and 'identifiability' derived from 'identify' meaning 'to recognize or determine as the same'.
'identify' comes from Latin 'identificare' (from 'idem' meaning 'same' + 'facere' meaning 'to make'); in English 'identify' produced the adjective 'identifiable' and the noun 'identifiability', and later the negative nominal form 'nonidentifiability' was formed by adding the prefix 'non-'.
Initially, 'identify' meant 'to make or regard as the same'; over time derivatives like 'identifiability' came to mean 'the capacity to be identified', and 'nonidentifiability' developed as the straightforward negation meaning 'not able to be identified', with a technical extension in statistics for parameters that cannot be uniquely determined.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
the state or quality of not being identifiable; inability to be recognized or distinguished.
The nonidentifiability of the fingerprints prevented the investigators from matching them to a suspect.
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Noun 2
(Statistics, mathematical modeling) A property of a model or its parameters meaning they cannot be uniquely estimated or determined from the available data.
Nonidentifiability in the model meant several different parameter sets produced identical predicted outcomes.
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Last updated: 2025/12/25 02:16