associative

adjective ! Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about associative at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

1. Pertaining to, resulting from, or characterised by association; capable of associating; tending to associate or unite.
2. Such that, for any operands a,b and c, (a∗b)∗c=a∗(b∗c); whose multiplication operation is associative.
3. Addressable by a key more complex than an integer index.

   AWK's associative arrays may be indexed by strings.