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:
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
In one of the most touching scenes about art and understanding, Souad is asked to free-associate over simple, hypnotic footage she shot at home of water filling a pail.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 24, 2023
Sometimes, he would free-associate about philosophy and literature; at other times, though, he would embroider his childhood experiences during the Depression into works of audio fiction.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 13, 2022
I’m continually awed by his ability to free-associate, but worry students would be laughed at by art-school peers if they offered his brand of analysis.
From New York Times ● Dec. 27, 2020
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
The prickly pear is as free-associated with the desert as a saguaro — there is one that’s native to Kern County — but here it’s tamed into backyard gardens and its fruit whirred into smoothies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2021
“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
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
The team started free-associating ideas for poignant emotional moments.
From New York Times ● Aug. 2, 2014
A born performer with a personality profile that might best be described as mercurially shy, Adams doubled as a free-associating stand-up comedian Monday.
From Washington Post
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.
