isolate

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English

Etymology

Back-formation from isolated, from French isolé, from Italian isolato, from Latin insulatus (cognate with insulate).

Pronunciation

  • (verb) IPA(key): /ˈaɪ.sə.leɪt/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • (noun) IPA(key): /ˈaɪ.sə.lət/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • Hyphenation: i‧so‧late

Verb

isolate (third-person singular simple present isolates, present participle isolating, simple past and past participle isolated)

  1. (transitive) To set apart or cut off from others.
  2. (transitive) To place in quarantine or isolation.
  4. (transitive, chemistry) To separate a substance in pure form from a mixture.
  5. (transitive) To insulate, or make free of external influence.
    • 2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:
      One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.
  6. (transitive, microbiology) To separate a pure strain of bacteria etc. from a mixed culture.
  7. (transitive) To insulate an electrical component from a source of electricity.
  8. (intransitive) To self-isolate.

Synonyms

Hyponyms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Noun

isolate (plural isolates)

  1. Something that has been isolated.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

isolate (not comparable)

  1. (literary) isolated.
    • 1923, D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, chapter XII:
      He said in his heart, the day his beard was shaven he was beaten, lost. He identified it with his isolate manhood.
    • 1961, Sylvia Plath, “Elm ”, in Ariel, HarperPerennial, →ISBN, page 16:
      Its snaky acid kiss.
      It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
      That kill, that kill, that kill.
    • 1999, Po Chü-i, “At Flowering-Brightness Monastery In Yung-ch'ung District”, in David Hinton, transl., The Selected Poems of Po Chü-i, New York, NY: New Directions, →ISBN, page 12:
      Narrow Yung-ch'ung streets quiet, / temple gardens all isolate mystery, / no one visits.

Related terms

Anagrams

Interlingua

Participle

isolate

  1. past participle of isolar

Italian

Etymology 1

Adjective

isolate

  1. feminine plural of isolato

Participle

isolate f pl

  1. feminine plural of isolato

Etymology 2

Verb

isolate

  1. inflection of isolare:
    1. second-person plural present indicative
    2. second-person plural imperative

Anagrams

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