isolate
Americanverb (used with object)
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isolates,
present (3rd person singular)
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isolated,
past participle, past
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isolating
present participle
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to set or place apart; detach or separate so as to be alone.
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Medicine/Medical. to keep (an infected person) from contact with noninfected persons; quarantine.
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Chemistry, Bacteriology. to obtain (a substance or microorganism) in an uncombined or pure state.
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Electricity. to insulate.
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Television. to single out (a person, action, etc.) for a camera closeup.
noun
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a person, thing, or group that is set apart or isolated, as for purposes of study.
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Psychology. a person, often shy or lacking in social skills, who avoids the company of others and has no friends within a group.
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Biology. an inbreeding population that is isolated from similar populations by physiological, behavioral, or geographic barriers.
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Also called language isolate. Linguistics. a language with no demonstrable genetic relationship, as Basque.
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something that has been isolated, as a by-product in a manufacturing process.
an isolate of soy flour.
adjective
verb
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to place apart; cause to be alone
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med to quarantine (a person or animal) having or suspected of having a contagious disease
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to obtain (a compound) in an uncombined form
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to obtain pure cultures of (bacteria, esp those causing a particular disease)
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electronics to prevent interaction between (circuits, components, etc); insulate
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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isolabilitynoun
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isolatornoun
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reisolateverb (used with object)
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unisolateverb (used with object)
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isolableadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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isolatesimple
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isolatessimple
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have isolatedperfect
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has isolatedperfect
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am isolatingprogressive
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are isolatingprogressive
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is isolatingprogressive
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have been isolatingperfect progressive
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has been isolatingperfect progressive
Past
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isolatedsimple
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had isolatedperfect
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was isolatingprogressive
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were isolatingprogressive
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had been isolatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of isolate
First recorded in 1800–10; back formation from isolated
Explanation
When you remove or set apart one thing from others, you isolate it. You could isolate yourself from people by living in a remote hut or, if you're a biologist, you could isolate a chromosome. The verb isolate comes from the adjective isolated, which comes from the Latin insulatas, meaning “made into an island.” You may have heard the John Donne quote, “No man is an island.” Donne was claiming that no matter how much you might try to isolate yourself from the rest of humanity, in the end people are all connected to one another. Humanity’s need for connectedness may, in fact, be illustrated by the fact that jailers frequently isolate criminals as punishment.
Vocabulary lists containing isolate
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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List 15
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Vocabulary from "Community is the 'killer app' missing from virtual reality" by Dmitri Williams
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"The colleagues from Hanover and I used various methods to isolate the particles from Ukrainian soil samples and attach them to tungsten electrodes," Weissenborn explains.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2026
Aggregate figures cannot isolate Maia’s contribution, so management’s explanation of infrastructure costs and product mix will matter.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
Rights group Amnesty International urged countries to "resist" the move, saying the sanctions were "designed to isolate and ultimately destroy" the court.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026
His spokesman said Kenya had the capacity to detect, isolate and manage suspected cases, adding that so far more than 650,000 travellers had been screened and 267 samples tested.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
“The first thing we must do is isolate the half-blood Thalia. The monster we seek will then come to her.”
From "The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan
I tried to make the point, when I began the book, that the people who were involved with chatbots were social isolates.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2026
Each successful mission further isolates Russians at the front.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026
By operating as a separate entity, GenCo isolates the cost of new growth to data centers, according to NiSource.
From Barron's ● Apr. 16, 2026
The latest research isolates the role of CSE itself.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 8, 2026
This is how he isolates the true impact of that single switch on the sprawling circuit board.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
Participants whose slow brain waves traveled shorter distances and appeared more isolated generally remembered fewer word associations.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 5, 2026
There were isolated incidents where the welfare framework was not fully implemented.
From BBC ● Nov. 5, 2026
“This is an isolated situation involving the franchisee and does not affect Bloomin’ Brands’ corporate operations, financing, or liquidity,” Bloomin’ Brands spokesperson Elizabeth Daly said in an email.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026
"These are not isolated incidents, and of course, we have to be collectively resilient and prepared for such cyber incidents."
From Barron's ● Nov. 3, 2026
As lawyers and national pundits became more prominent than clients and citizens, we isolated ourselves from the people who were our anchor and on whose behalf we had labored.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Instead of physically isolating and examining hundreds of thousands of peptides, the program analyzed the roughly 20,000 genes that encode human proteins, looking for sequences where the enzyme was likely to make cuts.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 4, 2026
Our replacement was isolating so we moved closer to town.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026
MarketWatch looked at isolating just the days when oil prices rose a lot to see its effect on stocks.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026
"The lack of support feels isolating," she says.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
I focused on isolating the data related to Castle Anorak and the forces the Sixers had positioned in and around it.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
