Also 7 -tiation. [ad. L. associātiōn-em, n. of action f. associāre: see ASSOCIATE and -ATION. Cf. mod.F. association, perhaps the immediate source.]
1. The action of combining together for a common purpose; the condition of such combination; confederation, league.
1535. Bp. Winchester, in Strype, Eccl. Mem., I. App. lxv. 160. Me seemeth the word association soundeth not well.
1584. in Heath, Grocers’ Comp. (1869), 84. To the better corroboration of this our loyall bond and association.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., 48. A solemn oath of association for the restoring of it.
1746. Smollett, Reproof, 53. Engag’d in firm association, stood, Their lives devoted to the public good.
1856. Kingsley, Lett. (1878), I. 474. Association will be the next form of industrial development.
b. Deed of association: the specific document setting forth the particulars of a proposed ‘limited liability company.’ Articles of association: see ARTICLE sb. 9.
1866. Crump, Banking, ii. 43. On its being proposed to start a banking company on the ‘limited liability’ principle … at least seven persons must sign a deed of association.
2. A body of persons who have combined to execute a common purpose or advance a common cause; the whole organization which they form to effect their purpose; a society; e.g., the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Football Association, the Church Association, the Civil Service Supply Association.
a. 1659. Cleveland, Poems (1677), 117. Many Sects twisted into an Association.
1863. Fawcett, Pol. Econ., II. vi. 220. If land was owned and cultivated by associations of labourers.
1879. (title) Report of the Somersetshire Association of Congregational Churches.
1880. Times, 12 Nov., 4/4. The Association game [of football] is, perhaps, on the whole, the more scientific of the two.
† 3. A document setting forth the common purpose of a number of persons, and signed by them as a pledge that they will carry it into execution. Obs.
1586. Lett. to E. Leycester, 18. Your oth made in the association.
1682. Lond. Gaz., No. 1714/6. That Seditious Paper, the Association, lately found in the Earl of Shaftsbury’s Closet.
1772. Hist. Rochester, 185. Three men who had forged an association.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 251. Dropping the Association into a flowerpot.
4. Union in companionship on terms of social equality; fellowship, intimacy.
1660. Boyle, Seraph. Love, iii. (1700), 33. Thus Self-denial is a kind of Holy Association with God.
1761. Smollett, Gil Blas, XII. vi. (1802), III. 382. The nobility would be profaned by my association.
1872. Sanford, Eng. Kings, 330. He had become habituated to … grossness and immorality in his daily associations.
5. The action of conjoining or uniting one person or thing with another.
1774. Sir J. Reynolds, Disc., vi. (1876), 390. The spark that without the association of more fuel would have died.
6. Law. The appointment of additional legal officials to act as colleagues on any occasion; the writ appointing them. (Cf. ASSOCIATE, sb. 3.)
1613. Sir H. Finch, Law (1636), 319. Association is a writ for other to be associate into their company, as fellow Iustices together with them.
1809. Tomlins, Law Dict., s.v., The King may make an association unto the sheriff upon a writ of re disseisin.
7. The mental connection between an object and ideas that have some relation to it (e.g., of similarity, contrariety, contiguity, causation). (Association of ideas.)
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., II. xxxiii. § 7. That there are such associations of them [ideas] made by custom in the minds of most men, I think no body will question.
1779. Johnson, L. P., Cowley (1816), 56. Words being arbitrary must owe their powers to association, and have the influence, and that only, which custom has given them.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., I. ii. § 20. The simple act of seizing food implies … the mental association of the appearance of the food with the satisfying of the feeling [of hunger].
8. An idea or recollection linked in the mind or memory with some object of contemplation, and recalled to the mind in connection with it.
1810. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 27. Why should … the holiest words with all their venerable associations be profaned.
1862. Trollope, Orley F., xlii. 306. A man could have no pleasant associations with a place unless he had made money there.
1879. McCarthy, Own Times, II. 62. One association of profound melancholy clings to that great debate.
