Meanings
plural associativities
- algebraThe condition of being associative.
The associativity of OR and AND is not at all obvious. It is tempting to assume that because OR and AND are commutative that they must be associative also. This is not the case, however, and some commutative Boolean operators are not associative. Examples include NAND and NOR.
2022 August 4, William Bahn, “Boolean Algebra Laws—Delving Into Boolean Identities”, in All About Circuits - computingThe property of an operator which determines how it is grouped with operators of the same precedence in the absence of parentheses.
The following table groups all of the operators with equal precendence and lists their associativity. The higher in the table, the higher precedence of execution the operator has in an expression.
2018, Richard Grimes, Marius Bancila, Modern C++: Efficient and Scalable Application Development, Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 27
Origin
- Englishassociate
- Englishassociative
- Englishassociativity
From associative + -ity.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Catalan associativitat
- associativitatcondition of being associative
Czech asociativita
- asociativitacondition of being associative
Danish associativitet
- associativitetcondition of being associative
Finnish liitännäisyys, assosiatiivisuus
- liitännäisyyscondition of being associative
- assosiatiivisuuscondition of being associative
French associativité
- associativitécondition of being associative
German Assoziativität
- Assoziativitätcondition of being associative
Icelandic tengni
- tengnicondition of being associative
Irish comhthiomsaitheacht
- comhthiomsaitheachtcondition of being associative
Japanese 結合性, 連想
- 結合性 (ketsugōsei)condition of being associative
- 連想 (rensō)programming: operator property relating to grouping
Polish łączność działania, asocjatywność
- łączność działaniacondition of being associative
- asocjatywnośćcondition of being associative
Portuguese associatividade
- associatividadecondition of being associative
Romanian asociativitate
- asociativitatecondition of being associative
Cite this entry
associativity. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/associativity
“associativity.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/associativity. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “associativity,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/associativity.
Source: associativity on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.