isolate
verb /ˈaɪsəleɪt/
/ˈaɪsəleɪt/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they isolate | /ˈaɪsəleɪt/ /ˈaɪsəleɪt/ |
| he / she / it isolates | /ˈaɪsəleɪts/ /ˈaɪsəleɪts/ |
| past simple isolated | /ˈaɪsəleɪtɪd/ /ˈaɪsəleɪtɪd/ |
| past participle isolated | /ˈaɪsəleɪtɪd/ /ˈaɪsəleɪtɪd/ |
| -ing form isolating | /ˈaɪsəleɪtɪŋ/ /ˈaɪsəleɪtɪŋ/ |
- to separate somebody/something physically or socially from other people or things
- isolate somebody/yourself/something Patients with the disease should be isolated.
- Engineers isolated the gas supply to the house.
- isolate somebody/yourself/something from somebody/something He was immediately isolated from the other prisoners.
- This decision will isolate the country from the rest of Europe.
- isolate something (from something) (formal) to separate a part of a situation, problem, idea, etc. so that you can see what it is and deal with it separately
- It is possible to isolate a number of factors that contributed to her downfall.
- isolate something (from something) (specialist) to separate a single substance, cell, etc. from others so that you can study it
- Researchers are still trying to isolate the gene that causes this abnormality.
Word Originearly 19th cent. (as a verb): back-formation from isolated.