free-associate
Americanverb (used without object)
Etymology
Origin of free-associate
First recorded in 1940–45
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Ask a random Angeleno to free-associate the word “park,” and you might get “garage.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
To that end, the company is researching why models confidently free-associate, and uses techniques during training to try to get them to more often admit the gaps in their knowledge.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
When Midge enters show biz, her shtick, just like Rivers’s was, is to dress for a date, in a black dress and pearls, then free-associate truths about women’s lives.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 11, 2018
Sometimes, in “Spy of the First Person,” the words do not reverberate so much as hiccup and free-associate.
From New York Times ● Dec. 6, 2017
The writers free-associate, and contemporary concerns often get the upper hand.
From Washington Post
“Now, some of these images have a new life outside of the movies but in a big collage that’s put together in a very free-associated way,” Carter said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2022
“They used to say ‘Secretariat doesn’t produce great horses’,” he free-associated.
From The Guardian ● May 8, 2019
When we worked, I would interview her for hours while she free-associated ideas.
From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2012
I had written a book on the John Carpenter movie “They Live,” where I had just stared at the movie and free-associated.
From Salon ● May 31, 2012
April 17—I had a nightmare last night, and this morning, after I woke up, I free-associated the way Dr. Strauss told me to do when I remember my dreams.
From "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
Monahon, whose impressive list of works includes “The Good John Proctor,” is free-associating a bit too indulgently on the topics of eating and pleasure.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026
López might have been having some fun with that obvious reference to Rust Cohle’s famous free-associating, one existential obsessive responding to another echo.
From Salon ● Feb. 19, 2024
So perhaps Rosenstein’s fleshy forms symbolically illustrate the workings of a free-associating mind.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 28, 2022
Freestyling over Meek Mill’s “In My Bag,” a teen-aged Whack, then performing under the moniker Dizzle Dizz, courted comparison to several sportive, dazzling street rappers, those capable of free-associating for minutes at a time.
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 1, 2018
While Mr. McLeod’s tours were known for his free-associating and almost indecipherably rapid monologues, his family situation was somewhat enigmatic.
From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2014
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
