for or by a group rather than individuals; "dipping each his bread into a communal dish of stew"- Paul Roche; "a communal settlement in which all earnings and food were shared"; "a group effort"
relating to a small administrative district or community; "communal elections in several European countries"
the act of consorting with or joining with others; "you cannot be convicted of criminal guilt by association"
the process of bringing ideas or events together in memory or imagination; "conditioning is a form of learning by association"
(ecology) a group of organisms (plants and animals) that live together in a certain geographical region and constitute a community with a few dominant species
a formal organization of people or groups of people; "he joined the Modern Language Association"
(chemistry) any process of combination (especially in solution) that depends on relatively weak chemical bonding
a relation resulting from interaction or dependence; "flints were found in association with the prehistoric remains of the bear"; "the host is not always injured by association with a parasite"
the state of being connected together as in memory or imagination; "his association of his father with being beaten was too strong to break"
set up on the principle of collectivism or ownership and production by the workers involved usually under the supervision of a government; "collective farms"
(computer science) the area of the screen in graphical user interfaces against which icons and windows appear
a person's social heritage: previous experience or training; "he is a lawyer with a sports background"
information that is essential to understanding a situation or problem; "the embassy filled him in on the background of the incident"
the part of a scene (or picture) that lies behind objects in the foreground; "he posed her against a background of rolling hills"
relatively unimportant or inconspicuous accompanying situation; "when the rain came he could hear the sound of thunder in the background"
extraneous signals that can be confused with the phenomenon to be observed or measured; "they got a bad connection and could hardly hear one another over the background signals"
understate the importance or quality of; "he played down his royal ancestry"
the act of arranging elements into specified groups without regard to order
a collection of things that have been combined; an assemblage of separate parts or qualities
an alliance of people or corporations or countries for a special purpose (formerly to achieve some antisocial end but now for general political or economic purposes)
a group of people (often temporary) having a common purpose; "they were a winning combination"
a sequence of numbers or letters that opens a combination lock; "he forgot the combination to the safe"
a formal agreement establishing an association or alliance between nations or other groups to achieve a particular aim
an organization of people (or countries) involved in a pact or treaty
a connection based on kinship or marriage or common interest; "the shifting alliances within a large family"; "their friendship constitutes a powerful bond between them"
designation by the chair granting a person the right to speak in a deliberative body; "he was unable to make his motion because he couldn't get recognition by the chairman"
the process of recognizing something or someone by remembering; "a politician whose recall of names was as remarkable as his recognition of faces"; "experimental psychologists measure the elapsed time from the onset of the stimulus to its recognition by the observer"
an acceptance (as of a claim) as true and valid; "the recognition of the Rio Grande as a boundary between Mexico and the United States"
approval; "give her recognition for trying"; "he was given credit for his work"; "give her credit for trying"; "the credits were given at the end of the film"
the explicit and formal acknowledgement of a government or of the national independence of a country; "territorial disputes were resolved in Guatemala's recognition of Belize in 1991"
(biology) the ability of one molecule to attach to another molecule that has a complementary shape; "molecular recognition drives all of biology, for instance, hormone and receptor or antibody-antigen interactions or the organization of molecules into larger biologically active entities"
the state or quality of being recognized or acknowledged; "the partners were delighted with the recognition of their work"; "she seems to avoid much in the way of recognition or acknowledgement of feminist work prior to her own"