"isolate" definition, meaning, and origin

Adjective

isolated.
- He said in his heart, the day his beard was shaven he was beaten, lost. He identified it with his isolate manhood. - 1923, D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, chapter XII:
- Its snaky acid kiss. It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults That kill, that kill, that kill. - 1961, Sylvia Plath, “Elm [published originally as "The Elm Speaks"]”, in Ariel, HarperPerennial, →ISBN,...
- Narrow Yung-ch'ung streets quiet, / temple gardens all isolate mystery, / no one visits. - 1999, Po Chü-i, “At Flowering-Brightness Monastery In Yung-ch'ung District”, in David Hinton, transl., The Selected Poems of Po...

Back-formation from isolated, from French isolé, from Italian isolato, from Latin īnsulatus (whence also insulate), see -ate (etymology 1, 2 and 3).

Something that has been isolated.
- We used electropherotypes in order to differentiate the original parental strains or isolates from the finally tumor cell-adapted isolates. - 2016 February 2, “Experimental Adaptation of Rotaviruses to Tumor Cell...

To set apart or cut off from others.
- By isolating these two main types of relation, hyponymy and incompatibility, we can characterize the relations between a large web of items. - 1977, Ruth Kempson, Semantic Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,...
- Iran could not be happier. The more Israel sinks into the West Bank, the more it is delegitimized and isolated, the more the world focuses on Israel’s colonialism rather than Iran’s nuclear enrichment, the more people...
Synonyms: island enisle quarantine
To place in quarantine or isolation.
Synonyms: quarantine
To separate a substance in pure form from a mixture.
- To isolate the petroline the condensed oil is distilled again until fifty per cent. of oil has been obtained, and what is left in the still is petroline. - 1871, English Patents of Inventions, Specifications: 1871, 901...
To insulate, or make free of external influence.
- One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination. -...
To separate a pure strain of bacteria etc. from a mixed culture.
To insulate an electrical component from a source of electricity.
To self-isolate.
Synonyms: self-quarantine