associational

comparative more associational · superlative most associational

1. Of, pertaining to or deriving from association.

   Instead of making a point, Roth shows us a detail, but a detail packed with layers of associational meaning.

   1988 October 7, Justin Hayford, “Communion and Confusion”, in Chicago Reader

   2 more examples

   How could I create such complex and wide schemes of associational thought and feeling, such filigreed webs of dreams and politics, without being mistaken for a “smuggler of reaction,” “an ideological confusionist,” or “an individualistic and dangerous element”?

   1940, Richard Wright, Native Son, New York: Harper and Row, published 1966, Introduction, p. xxii

   The distinction between […] southern Italians, who are amoral familists, and Americans, who are generally community-oriented and associational.

   2001, Bernard E. Harcourt, chapter 6, in Illusion of Order