secret society vs association

secret society and association both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
secret society	Yes	No	No	No
association	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, association is a hypernym of secret society; that is, association is a word with a broader meaning than secret society:

secret society (noun)	association (noun)
a society that conceals its activities from nonmembers	the act of consorting with or joining with others
	the process of bringing ideas or events together in memory or imagination
	a formal organization of people or groups of people
	(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
	(chemistry) any process of combination (especially in solution) that depends on relatively weak chemical bonding
	a relation resulting from interaction or dependence
	a social or business relationship
	the state of being connected together as in memory or imagination