associate

A person united with another or others in an act, enterprise, or business; a partner or employee.

Adjective

  1. Joined with another or others and having lower status.
    • The associate editor is someone who has some experience in editing but not sufficient experience to qualify for a senior post.
  2. Having partial status or privileges.
    • He is an associate member of the club.
  3. Following or accompanying; concomitant.
  4. Connected by habit or sympathy.
    • associate motions
    • These associate ideas are gradually formed into habits of acting together, by frequent repetition, while they are yet separately obedient to the will; as is evident from the difficulty we experience in gaining so exact...

Origin

From Middle English associat(e) (used participially as well as adjectively up to Early Modern English), from Latin associātus, the perfect passive participle of associō (“to join, unite”), from ad- + sociō, from socius (“shared, common, kindred”) + -ō (first conjugation verb-forming suffix).

Derived

associate professor physician associate

Noun

  1. A person united with another or others in an act, enterprise, or business; a partner or employee.
    • Allow me to introduce my business associates, Alice and Bob, who are senior VPs for ops and strategy, respectively.
    • Associates must wash hands before returning to work
    • The frowning lookes of fiery Tamburlaine, That with his terrour and imperious eies, Commands the hearts of his aſſociates, […] - c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First...
  2. Somebody with whom one works, coworker, colleague.
  3. A companion; a comrade.
  4. One that habitually accompanies or is associated with another; an attendant circumstance.
  5. A member of an institution or society who is granted only partial status or privileges.
  6. One of a pair of elements of an integral domain (or a ring) such that the two elements are divisible by each other (or, equivalently, such that each one can be expressed as the product of the other with a unit).
  7. A casual friend, acquaintance

Origin

From the substantivization of the above adjective, see -ate (noun-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.

Forms

associates

Synonyms

adjunct associate business partner cohort colaborer /colabourer collaborator colleague compeer confrere consociate coworker /co-worker fellow jobmate workfellow workmate

Hypernyms

employe employee laborer /labourer person toiler workie worker

Hyponyms

girl Friday man Friday officemate /office mate partner right-hand man right-hand woman

Related

accomplice aide apprentice assistant boss coconspirator helper helpmate helpmeet manager mentee mentor supervisor trainee trainer acquaintance attendant friend

Derived

associate degree associate's degree associateship associatism associette heteroassociate sales associate

Verb

  1. To join in or form a league, union, or association.
  2. To spend time socially; keep company.
    • She associates with her coworkers on weekends.
    • Before the race he associated only with other skiers.
    • As a political system democracy seems to me extraordinarily foolish,[…]. My servant is, so far as I am concerned, welcome to as many votes as he can get.[…]I do not suppose that it matters much in reality whether laws...

    Synonyms: surround

  3. To join as a partner, ally, or friend.
    • He associated his name with many environmental causes.
  4. To connect or join together; combine.
    • particles of gold associated with other substances

    Synonyms: attach join put together unite accouple affix assemble associate bewed bind clasp clinch combine conglomerate conglutinate conjoin connect construct couple entwine fay fix graft hitch

  5. To connect evidentially, or in the mind or imagination.
    • I always somehow associate Chatterton with autumn. - 1819 September 21, John Keats, letter to John Hamilton Reynolds
    • He succeeded in associating his name inseparably with some names which will last as long as our language. - 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II:
    • A branch of rail transport that seems to been rather neglected by historians is that concerned with cliff railways, of which a fair number exist in Great Britain. This is probably because these lines are overshadowed by...
  6. To endorse.
    • She refused to associate herself with the petition.
    • Mr. President, I rise to associate myself with the remarks of my senior Senator from Louisiana who has led this fight successfully for many years - 1999 August 4-5, Congress, “Pt. 14”, in Congressional Record, volume...
  7. To be associative.
  8. To accompany; to be in the company of.
    • Friends should associate friends in grief and woe - c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First...

    Synonyms: travel

Origin

From Middle English associat(e) (“associated, allied”) (the verb *associaten is not found in Middle English writings and only attested at a later period), see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more. Doublet of associe.

Forms

associates associating associated

Antonyms

disassociate

Related

association associative

Derived

adeno-associated associahedron associator interassociate misassociate photoassociate preassociate reassociate sea star-associated densovirus unassociate vanadium-associated protein