Wiktionary

isolate

English

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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

Verb

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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.
    • 1977, Ruth Kempson, Semantic Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 86:
      By isolating these two main types of relation, hyponymy and incompatibility, we can characterize the relations between a large web of items.
    • 2014 April 5, Thomas L. Friedman, “Sheldon: Iran’s Best Friend”, in The New York Times‎[1]:
      Iran could not be happier. The more Israel sinks into the West Bank, the more it is delegitimized and isolated, the more the world focuses on Israel’s colonialism rather than Iran’s nuclear enrichment, the more people call for a single democratic state in all of historic Palestine.
  2. (transitive) To place in quarantine or isolation.
  4. (transitive, chemistry) To separate a substance in pure form from a mixture.
    • 1871, English Patents of Inventions, Specifications: 1871, 901 - 946, page 6:
      To isolate the petroline the condensed oil is distilled again until fifty per cent. of oil has been obtained, and what is left in the still is petroline.
  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

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Hyponyms

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Translations

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

Noun

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isolate (plural isolates)

  1. Something that has been isolated.
    • 2016 February 2, “Experimental Adaptation of Rotaviruses to Tumor Cell Lines”, in PLOS ONE‎[2], →DOI:
      We used electropherotypes in order to differentiate the original parental strains or isolates from the finally tumor cell-adapted isolates.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Adjective

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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 [published originally as "The Elm Speaks"]”, 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.
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Anagrams

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Interlingua

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Participle

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isolate

  1. past participle of isolar

Italian

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Etymology 1

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Adjective

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isolate

  1. feminine plural of isolato

Participle

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isolate f pl

  1. feminine plural of isolato

Etymology 2

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Verb

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isolate

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

Anagrams

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