Planes, boats, cars, strangers—all were banned from entering the cordoned off area.
A big section of Watertown was cordoned off and police began a methodical, door-to-door, nerve-straining search.
Police have cordoned off the street and muscled bodyguards keep the crowds at bay and out of the camera sights.
He complained that not only has their house been cordoned off and “fumigated” but most of the neighbors have fled in fear.
Indeed, Romney has cordoned off major sections of his life, leaving him little to share beyond policy talking points.
In the blinding height of a Panhandle summer it is no good thing to be cordoned about with dead ponies and dead Indians.
Holding a baby in her arms, she burst out of the ring of men who had cordoned off the beheading.
The place could have been cordoned off, with the police, the army and the navy all cooperating to nab me.
mid-15c., "cord or ribbon worn as an ornament," from Middle French cordon "ribbon," diminutive of Old French corde "cord" (see cord). Sense of "a line of people or things guarding something" is 1758. Original sense preserved in cordon bleu (1727) "the highest distinction," literally "blue ribbon," for the sky-blue ribbon worn by the Knights-grand-cross of the Holy Ghost (highest order of chivalry); extended figuratively to other persons of distinction, especially, jocularly, to a first-rate cook. Cordon sanitaire (1857), from French, a guarded line between infected and uninfected districts.
1560s, "to ornament with a ribbon;" 1891 as "to guard with a cordon;" from cordon (n.). Related: Cordoned; cordoning.
