enisle
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make an island of.
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to place on an island.
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to isolate.
verb
Etymology
Origin of enisle
Explanation
To enisle something is to place it on an island or to isolate it as though it were on an island. A peninsula that has been cut off from the mainland by flooding has been enisled, even if only temporarily. The word enisle can refer to literally and physically turning a piece of land into an island by surrounding it with water on all sides. It might also refer to putting someone or something on an island. Historically, Napoleon Bonaparte was enisled twice — physically exiled to a remote island to prevent further conflict. The term is also used figuratively to describe isolating or separating a person, group, or region, as though on an island. Famous people sometimes enisle themselves to maintain privacy and escape public scrutiny.
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 map shows how Northern sea-power could not only divide the South in two but almost enisle the eastern part as well.
From Captains of the Civil War; a chronicle of the blue and the gray by William Charles Henry Wood
Swimming in symbolism, The Chairs readily enough suggests people's enisled fate in life's estranging sea, their efforts to flesh their daydreams, enforce their beliefs, communicate, be remembered.
From Time Magazine Archive
Such girls were placed on view at 10:30 a.m. for the express purpose of allowing the women of their age who had remained enisled in Maycomb to examine them.
From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee
So when the would-be Confederates of Maryland, led by the Mayor of Baltimore, began tearing up rails, burning bridges, and cutting the wires, the Union Government found itself enisled in a hostile sea.
From Captains of the Civil War; a chronicle of the blue and the gray by William Charles Henry Wood
While one they eye, flushed from his crowning, Ranks legions around him To shake the enisled neighbour nation And close her career!
From The Dynasts by Thomas Hardy
Thus in the seas of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal myriads live alone.
From Is Life Worth Living? by W. H. (William Hurrell) Mallock
Definitions 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.
