- 1to separate someone or something physically or socially from other people or things isolate somebody/yourself/something Patients with the disease should be isolated. isolate somebody/yourself/something from somebody/something He was immediately isolated from the other prisoners. This decision will isolate the country from the rest of Europe.
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- 2isolate something (from something) to separate a part of a situation, problem, idea, etc. so that you can see what it is and deal with it separately It is possible to isolate a number of factors that contributed to her downfall.
- 3isolate something (from something) (technology) to separate a single substance, cell, etc. from others so that you can study it Researchers are still trying to isolate the gene that causes this abnormality.
verb jump to other results
NAmE//ˈaɪsəˌleɪt//
Verb Forms present simple I / you / we / they isolate he / she / it isolates
past simple isolated
-ing form isolating
Check pronunciation: isolate