isolate

Etymology

Back-formation from isolated, from French isolé, from Italian isolato, from Latin insulatus (cognate with insulate).

verb

1. (transitive) To set apart or cut off from others.
2. (transitive) To place in quarantine or isolation.
3. (transitive, chemistry) To separate a substance in pure form from a mixture.
4. (transitive) 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. 2014-06-14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891
5. (transitive, microbiology) To separate a pure strain of bacteria etc. from a mixed culture.
6. (transitive) To insulate an electrical component from a source of electricity.
7. (intransitive) To self-isolate.

noun

1. Something that has been isolated.

adj

1. (literary) 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, page 16
   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 Chü-i, New York, NY: New Directions, page 12