associate vs connect

associate

verb
  • To connect or join together; combine. 

  • To join as a partner, ally, or friend. 

  • To endorse. 

  • To join in or form a league, union, or association. 

  • To spend time socially; keep company. 

  • To be associative. 

  • To connect evidentially, or in the mind or imagination. 

noun
  • A companion; a comrade. 

  • One that habitually accompanies or is associated with another; an attendant circumstance. 

  • A person united with another or others in an act, enterprise, or business; a partner. 

  • One of a pair of elements of an integral domain (or a ring) such that the two elements are divisible by each other (or, equivalently, such that each one can be expressed as the product of the other with a unit). 

  • Somebody with whom one works, coworker, colleague. 

  • A member of an institution or society who is granted only partial status or privileges. 

adj
  • Joined with another or others and having lower status. 

  • Having partial status or privileges. 

  • Following or accompanying; concomitant. 

connect

verb
  • To join: to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to each other. 

  • To join an electrical or telephone line to a circuit or network. 

  • To make a travel connection; to switch from one means of transport to another as part of the same trip. 

  • To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object. 

  • To join (two other objects), or to join (one object) to (another object): to be a link between two objects, thereby attaching them to each other. 

  • To join (two other objects), or to join (one object) to (another object): to take one object and attach it to another. 

  • To arrive at an intended target; to land. 

  • To associate; to establish a relation between. 

noun
  • A useful friend or associate. 

  • A drug dealer. 

How often have the words associate and connect occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )