isolate

«isolate» in Mova's school dictionary: To keep a person or thing apart from others, especially… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (isolate, isolates, isolated, isolating); noun (an isolate, isolates — science, rare)

meaning for a pupil

1) To keep a person or thing apart from others, especially to stop a disease spreading. tree →

2) To separate one thing from a mixture or group so you can study it. tree →

3) To make someone feel alone and left out. tree →

4) (maths) To get one letter or number on its own on one side of an equation. tree →

sense in the lessons

In health lessons and during illness people isolate at home; in science pupils isolate a variable to make a fair test, or scientists isolate a germ; in maths, «isolate x» means get x by itself. In stories and PSHE, being isolated means lonely, and isolating someone on purpose is a kind of bullying. Phrases: self-isolate, isolate the problem, feel isolated, isolated village.

examples

• The doctor told him to isolate at home until his fever went away. tree →
• Scientists isolated the germ that caused the illness. tree →
• To find x, isolate it on one side of the equation. tree →
• In a fair test we isolate one variable and keep the others the same. tree →
• Leaving a classmate out of every game can isolate them. tree →
• The snowstorm isolated the village for three days. tree →
• The farm is isolated, ten miles from the nearest shop. tree →

note

Regular verb: isolated, isolating. Pronounced EYE-so-late. Adjective: isolated (alone, far away); noun: isolation. «Self-isolate» became a common word during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the corpora

• To isolate a part means to practise one small bit on its own, then join it back to the bars around it.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «isolate» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.