associate

Adjective

associate (not comparable)

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. (dated) 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 an idea of the front of St. Paul's church, as to be able to delineate it with...1794, Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia; Or, The Laws of Organic Life, page 36

Noun (1)

associate (plural associates)

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
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. (African-American Vernacular) A casual friend, acquaintance

Verb

UK/əˈsəʊʃieɪt/US/əˈsoʊʃieɪt/

associate (third-person singular simple present associates, present participle associating, simple past and past participle associated)

1. (intransitive) To join in or form a league, union, or association.
2. (intransitive) To spend time socially; keep company.
   • She associates with her coworkers on weekends.
   • Before the race he associated only with other skiers.

   Synonyms:

   surround, forgather

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

   Synonyms:

   attach, join, put together, unite, accouple, affix, assemble, bewed, bind, clasp

5. (transitive) 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
6. (reflexive) 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 years1999 August 4-5, Congress, “Pt. 14”, in Congressional Record, volume 145, page 19343
7. To be associative.
8. (obsolete, transitive) To accompany; to be in the company of.
   • Friends should associate friends in grief and woec. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...

   Synonyms:

   travel

Noun (2) capitalized: Associate

Associate (plural Associates)

1. (slang) An associate's degree.