association vs distinction

association

noun
  • The act of associating. 

  • The state of being associated; a connection to or an affiliation with something. 

  • Relationship between classes of objects that allows one object instance to cause another to perform an action on its behalf. 

  • A benevolent overseas Chinese organization of popular origin for overseas Chinese individuals with the same surname or trade or business. 

  • A group of persons associated for a common purpose; an organization; society. 

  • Any relationship between two measured quantities that renders them statistically dependent (but not necessarily causal or a correlation). 

distinction

noun
  • The act of distinguishing, discriminating; discrimination. 

  • That which distinguishes; a single occurrence of a determining factor or feature, the fact of being divided; separation, discrimination. 

  • Specifically, a feature that causes someone or something to stand out as being better; a mark of honour, rank, eminence or excellence; being distinguished. 

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