Associations

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əˌsoʊʃiˈeɪʃənz/

Definitions

1. Mental links established between various concepts, emotions, or experiences
2. Ties formed in cognition that associate different ideas, feelings, or events
3. Links created in the mind between various thoughts, feelings, or memories ; groups formed by individuals sharing a common purpose or interest

Etymology: The noun "associations" is simply the plural of "association," which English took directly from Latin "associātiō," meaning a joining or uniting together. That Latin noun was formed from "associō," "to join with," built from "ad" ("to") and "socius" ("companion, ally"), a root that also gave English "social" and "society" through a separate route. So the notion of mental links began as the plain idea of people or things being joined as companions. The English word first appeared in the sense of a union or fellowship of people, and the mental sense came later, when philosophers began describing how one idea calls up another. The word's modern psychological meaning grew out of that broader sense of things being connected in the mind.

Synonyms: connections, links, relationships, affiliations, alliances

Antonyms: dissociations, separations, divisions, disconnections