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# 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#m1)

2) To separate one thing from a mixture or group so you can study it. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#m2)

3) To make someone feel alone and left out. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#m3)

4) (maths) To get one letter or number on its own on one side of an equation. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#m4)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#x1)
- Scientists isolated the germ that caused the illness. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#x2)
- To find x, isolate it on one side of the equation. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#x3)
- In a fair test we isolate one variable and keep the others the same. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#x4)
- Leaving a classmate out of every game can isolate them. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#x5)
- The snowstorm isolated the village for three days. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#x6)
- The farm is isolated, ten miles from the nearest shop. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/#x7)

### 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.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/3-practising-when-you-would-rather-not/14/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «isolate» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/I/isolate/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.