How to Use associative in a Sentence

associative

adjective
  • This is the free-flowing, free associative spirit of modern hip-hop in its purest form.
    — Pitchfork, 10 Dec. 2025
  • But the approach might be a struggle for those less inclined to submit to associative trains of thoughts.
    — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Details from the talk sparked more associative writing.
    — Literary Hub, 4 Nov. 2025
  • Photographs abound, as do match cuts, sound bridges and other forms of associative editing.
    — J. Hoberman, New York Times, 8 Feb. 2018
  • That’s sort of the associative power, the Pavlov’s Dog that the Right has.
    — Time, 11 June 2019
  • Associative ads don’t make appeal to the features of the products themselves.
    — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 9 May 2017
  • Smit also thinks there could be some associative conditioning at play.
    — Conor Feehly, Discover Magazine, 26 July 2022
  • This is a gorgeous, free-associative (or seemingly so) book, moving in ways both elusive and clear.
    — Bruce Handy, New York Times, 6 Apr. 2018
  • Coursing beneath is something like Earl’s free-associative pep talk to the world and himself.
    — Jenn Pelly, Time, 4 Dec. 2025
  • What’s happened is there’s now an assumption that these risk factors are causative rather than associative, says Elovitz.
    — Katie Jennings, Forbes, 17 May 2022
  • In the book’s best bits, his broad thesis provides fertile ground for expansive and erudite associative thought.
    — Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2021
  • And so this is probably also one reason why dreams are hyper associative, why there are these bizarre elements and scene shifts.
    — Steven Strogatz, Quanta Magazine, 24 Aug. 2022
  • His writing here is associative and nonlinear, not quite random but devoid of explicit plot or theme.
    — Stephen Kearse, Pitchfork, 24 Mar. 2026
  • Since modular subtraction is associative, that also means that se − m mod n ≡ 0.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 9 Aug. 2024
  • But a rhythm asserts itself and a structure, musical and associative.
    — Parul Sehgal, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Other times, the camera pans slowly, its drifting movements evoking the associative efforts to make sense of long-ago events.
    — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 12 Apr. 2026
  • However, their conclusion that associative memories can’t survive may not be hold true for all species.
    — Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta Magazine, 26 July 2023
  • This phenomenon is a consequence of the associative nature of our brains.
    — Cal Newport, The New Yorker, 21 May 2021
  • Berninger talk-sings throughout his solo record, narrating free-associative thoughts from the nostalgic corner of his brain.
    — Washington Post, 14 Oct. 2020
  • The bottles negate rather than support the advertiser’s associative claims.
    — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 9 May 2017
  • Being more associative gave me permission to take Authentic out of the office.
    — Literary Hub, 4 Nov. 2025
  • And, one supposes, by a kind of associative property, in Miranda as well.
    — Michael Ordoña Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan. 2022
  • The film compensates its lack of subtext with a certain free-associative generosity.
    — Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader, 10 Aug. 2017
  • The play felt like this declarative dissertation on the world, one that, in all its smarts and scope and lyrical associative logic, came to a grand conclusion.
    — Richard Lawson, Vanities, 26 Mar. 2018
  • The book intersperses a selection of Yu’s poems with her essays, arranged in an associative flow that shifts back and forth in time.
    — Washington Post, 29 Sep. 2021
  • Finally, the fourth neural net worked as an associative layer and predicted the output of the previous three at every time step.
    — Ars Technica, 1 Feb. 2025
  • This effect worked even after the shocks were stopped, indicating that Aplysia formed an associative memory.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 16 May 2018
  • All the random word pairings had the strange associative logic of a dream, as though I had been made privy to the Internet’s unconscious.
    — Thomas Beller, The New Yorker, 4 Apr. 2017
  • Adapting an iconic property is always a challenge given the sheer weight of fond, associative memories that the audience has.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 28 Sep. 2023
  • The telling is mostly episodic and fragmentary, imbued with startling images and powerful associative leaps.
    — Dominic Smith, New York Times, 17 Aug. 2016

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'associative.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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