Associativity

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The condition of being associative.

    "The associativity of OR and AND is not at all obvious. It is tempting to assume that because OR and AND are commutative that they must be associative also. This is not the case, however, and some commutative Boolean operators are not associative. Examples include NAND and NOR."

  2. 2
    The property of an operator which determines how it is grouped with operators of the same precedence in the absence of parentheses.

Example

More examples

"The associativity of OR and AND is not at all obvious. It is tempting to assume that because OR and AND are commutative that they must be associative also. This is not the case, however, and some commutative Boolean operators are not associative. Examples include NAND and NOR."

Etymology

From associative + -ity.

Related phrases

left associative

More for "associativity"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.