Association

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Association \As*so`ci*a"tion\ (?; 277), n. [Cf. F. association,
     LL. associatio, fr. L. associare.]
     1. The act of associating, or state of being associated;
        union; connection, whether of persons of things. "Some . .
        . bond of association." --Hooker.
        [1913 Webster]


  
              Self-denial is a kind of holy association with God.
                                                    --Boyle.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Mental connection, or that which is mentally linked or
        associated with a thing.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Words . . . must owe their powers association.
                                                    --Johnson.
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              Why should . . . the holiest words, with all their
              venerable associations, be profaned?  --Coleridge.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Union of persons in a company or society for some
        particular purpose; as, the American Association for the
        Advancement of Science; a benevolent association.
        Specifically, as among the Congregationalists, a society,
        consisting of a number of ministers, generally the pastors
        of neighboring churches, united for promoting the
        interests of religion and the harmony of the churches.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Association of ideas} (Physiol.), the combination or
        connection of states of mind or their objects with one
        another, as the result of which one is said to be revived
        or represented by means of the other. The relations
        according to which they are thus connected or revived are
        called the law of association. Prominent among them are
        reckoned the relations of time and place, and of cause and
        effect. --Porter.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  association
       n 1: a formal organization of people or groups of people; "he
            joined the Modern Language Association"
       2: the act of consorting with or joining with others; "you
          cannot be convicted of criminal guilt by association"
       3: the state of being connected together as in memory or
          imagination; "his association of his father with being
          beaten was too strong to break" [ant: {disassociation}]
       4: a social or business relationship; "a valuable financial
          affiliation"; "he was sorry he had to sever his ties with
          other members of the team"; "many close associations with
          England" [syn: {affiliation}, {tie}, {tie-up}]
       5: the process of bringing ideas or events together in memory
          or imagination; "conditioning is a form of learning by
          association" [syn: {connection}, {connexion}]
       6: a relation resulting from interaction or dependence; "flints
          were found in association with the prehistoric remains of
          the bear"; "the host is not always injured by association
          with a parasite"
       7: (chemistry) any process of combination (especially in
          solution) that depends on relatively weak chemical bonding
       8: (ecology) a group of organisms (plants and animals) that
          live together in a certain geographical region and
          constitute a community with a few dominant species

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  230 Moby Thesaurus words for "association":
     Anschluss, British Cabinet, Sanhedrin, US Cabinet, accompaniment,
     accord, accordance, addition, adjunct, advisory body, affairs,
     affiliation, affinity, agglomeration, aggregation, agreement,
     alignment, alliance, amalgamation, approximation, assemblage,
     assembly, assimilation, association by contiguity,
     association of ideas, bench, blend, blending, board,
     body of advisers, bond, bonding, borough council, brain trust,
     cabal, cabinet, cahoots, camaraderie, camarilla, cartel,
     centralization, chain of thought, chamber, city council,
     clang association, closeness, co-working, coaction, coadunation,
     coalescence, coalition, cochairmanship, coincidence, collaboration,
     colleagueship, collectivity, collegialism, collegiality, collusion,
     combination, combine, combined effort, combo, common council,
     community, companionship, company, complicity, composition,
     comradeship, concert, concerted action, concomitance, concordance,
     concourse, concurrence, condominium, confederacy, confederation,
     conference, confluence, confraternity, congeries, conglomeration,
     congress, conjugation, conjunction, connectedness, connection,
     consilience, consociation, consolidation, consortium, consortship,
     conspiracy, consultative assembly, contiguity, contrariety,
     contribution, controlled association, cooperation, cooperative,
     copartnership, copartnery, correspondence, cotenancy, council,
     council fire, council of ministers, council of state,
     council of war, county council, court, current of thought,
     dealings, deduction, deliberative assembly, diet, directory,
     disjunction, divan, ecumenism, embodiment, encompassment,
     engagement, enosis, federalization, federation, fellowship,
     filiation, flow of thought, fraternalism, fraternity,
     fraternization, free association, freemasonry, friendship, fusion,
     group, guild, having a part, homology, hookup, identification,
     inclusion, incorporation, inmost thoughts, integration,
     intercourse, intimacy, involvement, joining, joint chairmanship,
     joint control, joint ownership, joint tenancy, junction, junta,
     kitchen cabinet, league, legislature, liaison, link, linkage,
     linking, marriage, meld, melding, membership, mental linking,
     merger, mutual attraction, nearness, negative transference,
     organization, package, package deal, pairing, parasitism,
     parish council, partaking, participation, partnership,
     positive transference, privy council, propinquity, proximity,
     rapport, relatedness, relation, relations, relationship,
     saprophytism, secret thoughts, sharing, similarity, simultaneity,
     social circle, social class, society, sodality, solidification,
     sorority, soviet, staff, stream of consciousness, suffrage,
     symbiosis, sympathy, synchronism, syncretism, syndicate,
     syndication, syneresis, synergy, synesthesia, synod, synthesis,
     thoughts, tie, tie-in, tie-up, train of thought, transference,
     tribunal, unification, union, united action, voting, wedding