quarantine

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A period when a person or animal is kept away from others to stop a disease from spreading.

   The travellers were placed in quarantine for two weeks.

2. 2
   verb

   To keep a person or animal isolated to prevent a disease from spreading.

   The sick birds were quarantined to protect the rest of the flock.

Simplified etymology

Quarantine comes from Italian quarantina, literally “forty days,” from quaranta “forty.” In the early 16th century it referred to the forty days during which a widow could remain in her deceased husband’s house. The isolation sense was first used in English in the mid-17th century, though the practice dates to the 14th century, when Venice and Ragusa held ships from plague-stricken countries at anchor for forty days before admitting them.

From Medieval Latin quarentena and quarentīna (“40-day period, Lent”) via Middle English quarentine, Norman quarenteine, French quarenteine, and Italian quarantina, via proposed Late Latin *quaranta + -ēna (forming distributive adjectives), from Latin quadrāgintā (“four tens, 40”). In reference to French politics, calque of French quarantaine after edicts of Louis IX. In reference to a severance of political relations, popularized by the Roosevelt administration's 1937 approach to the Axis powers and the later Kennedy administration's 1962 approach to Cuba during the missile crisis.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary