Meaning & use
isolate
Last updated
Meanings
verbtransitive
To keep a person, place or thing apart from others so that there is little or no contact.
Grammar: Takes an object; often used with from: isolate the patient from other people.
Patterns
- isolate someone from someone
- isolate something
Doctors isolated the patient to stop the infection from spreading.
Heavy snow isolated the village for three days.
Hurtful words can isolate a child from classmates.
verbtransitive
To find and separate one cause, factor or part so that it can be studied or dealt with alone.
Grammar: Takes an object: isolate the problem, isolate a variable.
Patterns
- isolate the cause of something
- isolate something from something
The engineers isolated the fault to a single cable.
It is hard to isolate one reason for the company's failure.
The experiment isolates the effect of temperature.
verbtransitivetechnicalchemistrybiology
In chemistry or biology, to obtain a pure substance or organism from a mixture.
Grammar: Takes an object: scientists isolated the gene.
Patterns
- isolate something from something
Researchers isolated the virus from a patient's blood sample.
She isolated caffeine from the tea leaves.
The team isolated a new compound from sea sponges.
verbintransitive
To keep yourself apart from others, for example to avoid spreading illness or because of feeling withdrawn.
Grammar: Often used without an object: she isolated at home after a positive test.
Patterns
- isolate at home
Everyone in the house had to isolate for a week.
After the loss, he began to isolate and stopped answering calls.
If you have symptoms, isolate until you feel well.
Word forms
| third person singular | isolates |
|---|---|
| past tense | isolated |
| past participle | isolated |
| -ing form | isolating |
Common combinations
- isolate a patient
- Nurses isolate a patient with a contagious illness.
- isolate the cause
- We need to isolate the cause of the crash.
- isolate oneself
- He tends to isolate himself when stressed.
- isolate from
- The system isolates the test from live data.
- isolate a gene
- Scientists isolated a gene linked to the disease.
- socially isolated
- Many older people feel socially isolated.
Synonyms and how they differ
- separate
- Separate is the general word for keeping things apart, while isolate suggests cutting off almost all contact.
- quarantine
- Quarantine is an official period of isolation to stop disease, narrower than isolate.
- segregate
- Segregate often means separating groups by rule, and it can sound unfair or discriminatory.
- detach
- Detach means to unfasten a part from something, not to remove contact.
Opposites
Word family
- isolation noun
- the state of being apart
- isolated adjective
- remote or separate
- isolationism noun
- a policy of avoiding involvement with other countries
- isolate noun
- a pure strain or sample obtained in a lab
Commonly confused: isolate or insulate?
isolate vs insulate
Insulate means to cover something so heat, cold or electricity cannot pass through, not to separate people.
Practice
To find out what was damaging the crop, the scientists tried to ___ the one factor responsible.
Choose one answer.
Isolate means to separate one factor so it can be studied. Insulate, integrate and irritate have different meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “isolate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.