What does isolate mean?
To isolate something is to set it apart from other people, objects, influences, or circumstances. The word is especially common in scientific and medical language: researchers isolate a virus, bacterium, gene, or chemical compound so that it can be identified, studied, or treated, and public-health officials may isolate people or animals to limit transmission. In everyday use, describing a place as isolated often means that it is distant from towns, roads, or other populated areas, though it can also suggest that someone is deliberately separated from society. To isolate a cause or a case means to distinguish it from everything else, allowing a particular explanation or instance to be examined on its own. Although the basic image is one of separation, the word does not always carry a negative implication: an isolated study sample or gene is separated for a useful scientific purpose. Its strong association with laboratory work and careful analysis makes it valuable in formal and technical writing.
To separate someone or something from other people, things, or surroundings; to distinguish a particular case, component, or cause; or to set apart for examination, study, or treatment.
"The laboratory isolated the bacteria from the contaminated sample."
Common in scientific, medical, academic, and legal contexts. The phrase “isolate X from Y” is especially frequent.
A substance, organism, or other component that has been separated from a mixture or from its natural surroundings for study, identification, or treatment.
"Researchers analyzed each isolate to determine which strain had caused the outbreak."
Chiefly a technical noun used in scientific, medical, and laboratory contexts.
The plural is used chiefly in scientific, medical, and laboratory contexts for distinct separated substances, organisms, or components.
"The researchers compared the viral isolates collected from different patients."
The word isolate began with the idea of making something an island: separate, surrounded, and standing apart.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of isolate
The word comes through French from Italian isolare, meaning “to make into an island.” The Italian verb derives from Latin insulare, formed from insula, “island,” the same source behind island, isle, and insular. Over time, the meaning broadened from making something separate in a physical or geographical sense to distinguishing it intellectually, scientifically, or causally.
Related word forms
How isolate is actually used
The word is common in academic, scientific, medical, and legal contexts as well as in general speech. In its medical use, isolation describes both the separation of infected individuals and, by extension, the pathogen being separated for study; in social contexts, it may carry the negative connotation of loneliness or exclusion.
Easily confused with isolate
To isolate something is to separate it from other things, whereas isolation is the resulting state of being or existing apart.
Isolate generally means to separate or distinguish something, while insulate specifically means to protect it from heat, electricity, sound, or similar forces.