fingerprint vs identifier

fingerprint

noun
  • A unique combination of features that serves as an identification of something. 

  • The natural pattern of ridges on the tips of human fingers, unique to each individual. 

  • Unique identification for public key in asymmetric cryptosystem. 

  • A trace that gives evidence of someone's involvement. 

  • The patterns left on surfaces where uncovered fingertips have touched, especially as used to identify the person who touched the surface. 

verb
  • To take somebody's fingerprints. 

  • To identify something uniquely by a combination of measurements. 

identifier

noun
  • Something that identifies or uniquely points to something or someone else. 

  • One who identifies as a particular type or role; one who says and believes that they are a certain thing. 

  • A formal name used in source code to refer to a variable, function, procedure, package, etc. or in an operating system to refer to a process, user, group, etc. 

  • A primary key. 

  • Someone who identifies; a person who establishes the identity of someone or something. 

  • A guidebook that helps determine the specific class of an object (such as a mushroom, herb, fish, bird, drug, or mineral), or its individual identity (such as that of a star). 

  • A code that distinguishes a particular element from all other elements in a document. 

How often have the words fingerprint and identifier occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )