Associating

How to spell associating

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce associating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does associating mean?

1. verbForming a mental connection between things, or spending time in the company of certain people.

Associating in a sentence

• The report warns against associating a single bad result with the whole strategy.

• His managers worried that he was associating with the wrong crowd.

Where does associating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin associare, meaning 'to join to' or 'to unite with', which was built from the prefix ad- 'to' and socius, meaning 'companion' or 'ally'. The same socius root sits inside familiar words like 'society', 'social', and 'sociable', all of which carry the underlying idea of companionship. Latin associare passed into English through Old French in the late 1300s, at first describing the act of joining people together in a common purpose. Over time the meaning broadened to include connecting things or ideas in the mind, which is the sense most adults use today. The present participle 'associating' simply adds the -ing ending, and the doubled s in the middle, inherited straight from the Latin spelling, is the trap that catches writers who expect a single s.

How the word is built

• as- (from ad-: to, toward)
• soci (from socius: companion, ally)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ing (present participle)