isolate

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   place or set apart

   They isolated the political prisoners from the other inmates

2. 2
   verb

   obtain in pure form

   The chemist managed to isolate the compound

3. 3
   verb

   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.

4. 4
   verb

   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.

5. 5
   verb

   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.

6. 6
   noun

   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.

7. 7
   adj

   isolated.

   He said in his heart, the day his beard was shaven he was beaten, lost. He identified it with his isolate manhood.

8. 8
   verb

   set apart from others

Etymology

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