associate
Verbassociates, associating, associated
Noun pluralassociates
Formsassociates, associating, associated
Pluralassociates
- 1To connect one thing with another by evidence or in the mind and imagination.
Investigators associate the fingerprints with a single suspect.
Many people associate bright colors with feelings of happiness.
Similarlink, connect, relate, identify, correlate
Oppositedissociate, separate
Note
The verb of memory and inference takes a fixed construction: associate one thing with another. Keats wrote in an 1819 letter, "I always somehow associate Chatterton with autumn," a link that is felt rather than proved. Macaulay, in The History of England (1848), applies it to reputation: a name associated inseparably with names that will last. Investigators who associate evidence with a suspect claim a demonstrated link instead.
- 2
- 3Someone who works together with others in a business, venture, or undertaking, whether as a partner or as an employee.
She brought on a trusted associate to manage the new branch.
His associates handled the day-to-day running of the company.
Similarpartner, colleague, collaborator, aide
Note
Here the adjective has turned into a noun, and it spans a wide social range. In Marlowe's Tamburlaine the associates are followers whose hearts the conqueror commands. In business they are partners introduced by name. On workplace signage (Associates must wash hands) the word is a courteous name for employees. Context decides the rank, so do not assume an associate is an equal.
- 4
- 5Joined with another or others while holding a lower or subordinate status.
An associate professor often teaches alongside the senior faculty.
The court appointed her as an associate judge for the district.
Similarjunior, subordinate
Oppositesenior
Note
The whole family of senses goes back to Latin associātus, "joined," the past participle of associō. That verb is built on socius, "shared, kindred." In early English the word did a participle's work. As an adjective it works before a noun, as in associate editor, associate professor and associate judge. Like other words of rank, it does not compare: nobody is "more associate." It marks a junior place in a shared post.
- 6Having partial status or only some of the privileges of full membership.
His associate standing let him use the lab but not chair it.
The academy offered her an associate position with limited voting rights.
Oppositefull
- 7A partial member of an institution or society, holding some but not all of the status and privileges that full members enjoy.
He joined the college as an associate before earning full membership.
Associates of the academy may attend lectures but cannot hold office.
Similaraffiliate
- 8
- 9To connect or join one thing with another; to combine them.
The framework lets developers associate user accounts with payment records.
In this ore, fine grains of gold are associated with pyrite, so the rock must be crushed to separate them.
Similarconnect, join, combine, unite, attach
Oppositeseparate, disconnect, dissociate, detach
Note
In talk of ores and substances, this sense appears mostly in the passive. Particles of gold associated with other substances are physically found together, not merely thought of together. That is the line to draw against the sense of mental connection. Here "associate X with Y" describes a real joining, close to its synonyms attach, join and unite.
- 10
- 11Someone who keeps another person company or shares their life and fortunes as a comrade.
All that hard winter at the camp, the old prospector's only associate was a young drifter who shared his fire.
The detective questioned several of the suspect's known associates.
- 12Coming along with or following something else; accompanying or concomitant.
The infection brought a fever and several associate complications.
Engineers studied the earthquake and its associate aftershocks.
Similaraccompanying, attendant, concomitant, related
- 13To give one's open support or endorsement to a person, message, or position.
She associated herself with the campaign's core message.
Members may associate themselves with the official statement during debate.
Oppositedissociate, distance
Note
In deliberative bodies the verb becomes a formal endorsement, and it is always reflexive. In the Congressional Record of 1999, a senator rises "to associate myself with the remarks of my senior Senator from Louisiana." The formula lets a member agree on the record without repeating the argument. Outside a chamber the phrase still sounds deliberate and official.
- 14A thing that habitually accompanies another; an attendant circumstance.
Anxiety is a frequent associate of chronic overwork.
Drought and its familiar associates devastated the region's farms.
Similarcompanion, accompaniment, concomitant
- 15Connected to another by habit or natural sympathy, as in living closely together.
Note
This is eighteenth-century biology. Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia (1794) speaks of associate ideas and associate motions: actions that frequent repetition binds into habits of acting together, while each stays separately obedient to the will. As a bare adjective it now reads as period vocabulary. Quote it when discussing older science, but in modern prose say linked or habitually coordinated.
- 16In ring theory, one of a pair of elements each of which divides the other, so that each is the product of the other and a unit.
Among the integers, n and −n are associates because each divides the other.
Every element is an associate of itself, since multiplying by the unit one changes nothing.
Note
Ring theory uses this word for elements that are the same up to a unit. Among the integers the only units are 1 and −1, so the associates of 6 are 6 and −6. Being associates is an equivalence relation: every element is its own associate, the relation runs both ways, and it chains. As a result, divisibility facts usually hold only up to associates. Keep it distinct from the verb for associative operations.
- 17In mathematics, to satisfy the associative law, yielding the same result regardless of how the operands are grouped.
Real-number addition and multiplication both associate, so regrouping the terms leaves the result unchanged.
Because matrix multiplication associates, one may compute the product in any grouping.
Note
Mathematicians make the operation itself the subject: addition associates, and so does matrix multiplication. The verb is shorthand for "is associative," meaning that (a + b) + c equals a + (b + c). Because of this, brackets can be dropped from longer chains, and a product of many terms has one value however it is grouped.
- 18To accompany someone; to be in another person's company, often as an escort.
Three knights associated the king as he rode toward the border.
Friends should associate friends in grief and woe
c. 1588, William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”Note
Shakespeare could give the verb a direct object, as in Titus Andronicus: "Friends should associate friends in grief and woe." That use is obsolete. Modern English says accompany or attend, and the verb itself now takes with, as in the sense of keeping company. In older texts, read it as "stand beside"; in new writing, avoid it.
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Practice
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Origins
From Middle English associat(e), from Latin associātus, the past participle of associō ("to join, unite"), formed from ad- plus sociō, from socius ("shared, common, kindred").
Formed by turning the adjective in Etymology 1 into a noun, using the noun-forming suffix -ate.
From Middle English associat(e) ("associated, allied"), with the verb-forming suffix -ate; the verb *associaten is not found in Middle English and is attested only later. A doublet of associe.