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:
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
By keeping their diets identical, the researchers could more clearly isolate the effects of exercise.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
We could isolate someone and keep everyone else uninfected.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
And all that time on my own, alien and isolate, without a soul I could trust.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
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
Turning liquid whey into premium protein concentrates and isolates takes multimillion-dollar ultrafiltration systems and drying towers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
Using an SPV, he said, not only keeps the debt separate but also isolates the risk of a particular project.
From Barron's ● Nov. 3, 2025
"We want to build a care system that supports them, not isolates them."
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2025
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
She said repeated attacks must not be viewed as an isolated series of incidents.
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026
In its lawsuit filed in a federal court in Tennessee, the FTC joined states including Alabama, Arizona and New Jersey to allege “pervasive and systemic pricing inaccuracies, rather than isolated or accidental errors.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2026
Although the overall system was isolated from the outside world, atoms could move between these two regions.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 30, 2026
Storms will start to arrive Friday, with stray showers in isolated areas and maximum temperatures 5 to 10 degrees below normal, according to the forecast from the National Weather Service.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026
We run the risk of winning isolated battles but losing the larger war.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
MarketWatch looked at isolating just the days when oil prices rose a lot to see its effect on stocks.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026
"They've achieved the military objective of isolating Taiz from Aden, even if they haven't fully taken control of it," Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow at the Chatham House think tank, told AFP.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026
Fox treated the disclosure as a fireable offense, cutting Bartiromo loose after over 12 years, isolating her from her own staff in her final weeks and firing her executive producer alongside her.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026
The incidents show that the AI companies need to have stronger, industrywide standards for isolating their systems during cyber testing, said Alex Stamos, chief product officer with the cybersecurity company Corridor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
The deep black grooves isolating his square chin from his jowls were bent again in a kind of jeering and reprehensible mirth.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
