associate vs couple

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. 

couple

verb
  • To join (two things) together, or (one thing) to (another). 

  • To cause (two animals) to copulate, to bring (two animals) together for mating. 

  • To join in sexual intercourse; to copulate. 

noun
  • A small number. 

  • That which joins or links two things together; a bond or tie; a coupler. 

  • A couple-close. 

  • Two partners in a romantic or sexual relationship. 

  • One of the pairs of plates of two metals which compose a voltaic battery, called a voltaic couple or galvanic couple. 

  • Two of the same kind connected or considered together. 

  • A turning effect created by forces that sum to zero in magnitude but produce a non-zero external torque. 

det
  • Two or a few, a small number of. 

adj
  • Two or (a) small number of. 

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