associate vs union

associate

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

  • A companion; a comrade. 

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

  • 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. 

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. 

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

  • Having partial status or privileges. 

  • Following or accompanying; concomitant. 

union

noun
  • The act of uniting or joining two or more things into one. 

  • An affiliation of several parishes for joint support and management of their poor; also the jointly-owned workhouse. 

  • That which is united, or made one; something formed by a combination or coalition of parts or members; a confederation; a consolidated body; a league. 

  • A data structure that can store any of various types of item, but only one at a time. 

  • A trade union; a workers' union. 

  • An association of students at a university for social and/or political purposes; also in some cases a debating body. 

  • A joint or other connection uniting parts of machinery, such as pipes. 

  • The act or state of marriage. 

  • The set containing all of the elements of two or more sets. 

  • The state of being united or joined; a state of unity or harmony. 

verb
  • To combine sets using the union operation. 

adj
  • Belonging to, represented by, or otherwise pertaining to a labour union. 

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