word association

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026

word′ associa′tion, 

1. Psychology stimulation of an associative pattern by a word.

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

word association noun

1. an early method of psychoanalysis in which the patient thinks of the first word that comes into consciousness on hearing a given word. In this way it was claimed that aspects of the unconscious could be revealed before defence mechanisms intervene