isolate

To keep someone or something apart from others so they cannot mix or have contact.

• Doctors isolated the sick child.
• The storm has isolated several villages from the nearest town.
• We need to isolate this chemical from the other substances.

How to use it: isolate someone/something from someone/something (The fence isolates the garden from the street.)

Similar words: separate, cut off, set apart

Opposites: connect

Common phrases: isolate someone, isolate a sample, isolate yourself

A person, organism, or substance kept apart from others, often for study.

• The laboratory tested a bacterial isolate.
• Each isolate came from a different patient.
• These isolates were grown separately for further study.

Common phrases: bacterial isolate, clinical isolate, single isolate

A language with no other languages known to come from the same origin.

• Basque is a language isolate.
• Linguists disagree about whether this language is an isolate.
• Several isolates are spoken by small communities.

Similar words: language isolate

Common phrases: language isolate, an isolate, linguistic isolate