How to Use free association in a Sentence

free association

noun
  • But this isn’t just mad free association.
    — Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 2 Dec. 2025
  • In other words, some groups have a right to free association but others don’t.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 10 Mar. 2021
  • But the process for both of them was certainly based on the concept of free association.
    — Sarah Medford, WSJ, 30 May 2018
  • Something in human nature craves more than a sphere of rights, more than promises of nice things and free association.
    — Nick Burns, The New Republic, 7 Aug. 2019
  • Challenges to mask bans on the grounds of free speech and free association have mostly failed in American courts.
    — Ephrat Livni, Quartz, 15 Apr. 2020
  • Any such rule would be a plain violation of the free association rights that politicians must have with anybody who might support them.
    — Lawrence Lessig, Time, 30 Apr. 2026
  • The gamechanger for me was a free association writing exercise.
    — Amy Dickinson, Detroit Free Press, 29 Apr. 2020
  • In this approach, a platform would require users to form groups through free association, and then to post only through those groups, with the group’s imprimatur.
    — Jaron Lanier, The Atlantic, 26 May 2022
  • The second was that religious liberty and free association were at grave legal risk.
    — David French, National Review, 4 June 2019
  • On the legal front, fundamental rights to free association, free press and free speech have left courts cautious to intervene.
    — Nicole Hemmer, CNN, 19 Nov. 2021
  • The state-court case argues that the policy violates students’ right to free association.
    — Erin Hawley, National Review, 19 Aug. 2019
  • His vision of the disparate worlds that the recent targets of his ire come from is uniformly dystopian—a free association of skin color with filth and crime.
    — Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, 29 July 2019
  • Meanwhile, independence trailed and free association did not make it onto the ballot.
    — Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus / Made By History, TIME, 11 Oct. 2024
  • In that space, a sofa was never just a sofa, but an occasion for free association, a cue to unconscious thoughts and deeper feelings.
    — Penelope Green, New York Times, 31 Mar. 2020
  • The appeals panel held that the district court was wrong to dismiss plaintiffs’ free association claim, as their lawsuits raised a question that hasn’t yet been been decided by courts.
    — oregonlive, 1 Mar. 2021
  • The idea that such free association might intensify a piece of art would continue to preoccupy Freud.
    — Sophie Madeline Dess, The Atlantic, 4 Dec. 2019
  • All of this is almost certainly a violation of the First Amendment right to free association and speech.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 10 Mar. 2021
  • His approach underscores the importance of free association and creativity, even in the midst of hectic days.
    — Elizabeth Lund, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 Apr. 2023
  • Exploring is something that breaks the bounds of time and space and permits us free associations, perhaps with similar events in the past, perhaps with choice-worthy events in the future.
    — Martin Seligman, BostonGlobe.com, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Crosswords tug all sides of your mind, requiring you to dart from straightforward definitions to narrative logic to free association to bad dad puns, all in the same space.
    — Jerry Weissman, Forbes, 18 Sep. 2021
  • And then Morrison got philosophical, which is exactly the kind of free association movies are supposed to inspire.
    — Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, 31 July 2024
  • And students have a right to free association, so schools often can't discipline members until a specific complaint is filed, Nuwer said.
    — Daniella Silva, NBC News, 18 Sep. 2017
  • Word games and free association are unusual styles of texting, Jesse Barron, a reporter who covered the case for Esquire, says in the film.
    — Sonia Rao, Washington Post, 10 July 2019
  • Ward also said the subpoena was overly broad and violated First Amendment rights of free association.
    — Richard Ruelas, The Arizona Republic, 22 Sep. 2022
  • Charlie Harper takes that straightforward arc and scrambles the timeline, so that the beats are organized not by chronology but by something like free association.
    — Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 4 Sep. 2025
  • The case alleges violations of the agents' First Amendment rights to free association and their Fifth Amendment right to due process.
    — Carrie Johnson, NPR, 8 Dec. 2025
  • Instead, conservatives should be standing up for the Constitution and its fundamental rights of free speech and free association.
    — Iain Murray, National Review, 24 Aug. 2021
  • To cover such a broad swathe of recent history, much of which has been rehashed in other documentaries and media, Lee applies a spirited free association.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 19 Aug. 2021
  • Bella’s adult son, Peter (played by Reed Birney, Albert’s uncle), turns up—and, as if in free association with his name, morphs into a wolf.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 16 Feb. 2022
  • The firm argued in its court filing that the release of the financial records would reveal the names of its clients and therefore violate its and their First Amendment rights to free speech and free association.
    — Katelyn Polantz, CNN, 28 Oct. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'free association.' 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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