To join in company, as a friend, companion, partner, confederate, or the like; join or connect intimately; unite; combine; link: followed by with (formerly sometimes by to): as, to associate others with us in business or in an enterprise; particles of earthy matter associated with other substances.To keep company with; attend.To make an associate of; admit to association or membership: with to: as, “he was associated to the Royal Academy,”To have intercourse; be an associate or associates: implying intimacy: as, congenial minds are disposed to associate.To join in or form a confederacy or association.In general, to unite, as in action, with a person or thing, or to coexist in organic dependence, as the parts of the body.Joined in interest, object or purpose, office or employment; combined together; joined with another or others: as, an associate judge or professor; “my associate powers,”In pathology, connected by habit or sympathy: as, associate movements, that is, movements which occur sympathetically, in consequence of preceding motions: thus, convergence of the eyes is associated with contraction of the pupils.n. A companion; one who is on terms of intimacy with another; a mate; a fellow.n. A partner in interest, as in business; a confederate; an accomplice; an ally: as, “their defender and his associates,”n. One who shares an office or a position of authority or responsibility; a colleague or coadjutor.n. One who is admitted to a subordinate degree of membership in an association or institution: as, an Associate of the Royal Academy, or of the National Academy of Design.n. Anything usually accompanying or associated with another.n. Synonyms and Associate, Friend, Companion, Comrade, Fellow, Partner, Ally, Colleague, Coadjutor, Confederate, Associate is the most general word for persons who are connected in life, work, etc.; it is special only in suggesting an alliance of some permanence. Friend is the most general word for persons who, through community of life or otherwise, have kindly feelings toward each other. Companion, literally a messmate, applies where the persons are much thrown together, but are not united by any strong tie; hence it is not a good synonym for husband or wife. “Many men may be admitted as companions who would not be altogether fit as associates,” Crabb, Eng. Synonymes, p. 197. Comrade denotes a close companion; it implies freedom of intercourse and a good degree of friendship: as, comrades in arms. Fellow has nearly lost its early signification of agreeable companionship, the later meanings having overshadowed it: as, “a bettre felawe schulde men noght fynde,” Compare fellow-feeling, fellow-helper, fellowship. Fellow in this connection may mean one who naturally would be or is a companion: as, why do you not go with your fellows? A partner is one who takes part with others, especially in business or in any kind of joint ownership. Formerly ally was nearly equivalent in meaning to associate, but it is now applied chiefly to states or rulers in their public capacity: as, the allies in the Crimean war. A colleague is an associate for some specific purpose or in some office; it is, like coadjutor, properly applicable only to one engaged in labor or business regarded as especially dignified: as, Senators A and B were colleagues; Luther and his coadjutors. A confederate is one somewhat formally associated with others, now usually, when applied to private relations, for a bad object. See accomplice.n. In logic, a unit not contained in the collection which is paired with each unit, of the collection so as to make a pair distinguished from every pair consisting of the associate and a unit not a member of the collection.n. In law: An officer in each of the superior courts of common law in England whose duty it was to keep the records of his court, to attend its nisi prius sittings, and to enter the verdict, make up the postea, and deliver the record to the party entitled thereto.n. A person associated with the judges and clerks of assize in commission of general jail delivery.
