different between insulate vs isolation

English

Etymology

From Late Latin insulatus (“made like an island”), past participle of insulare (“to make like an island”), from insula (“island”); see insular.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??nsj?le?t/, /??n??le?t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??ns?le?t/
• Hyphenation: in?su?late

Verb

insulate (third-person singular simple present insulates, present participle insulating, simple past and past participle insulated)

1. To separate, detach, or isolate.
2. To separate a body or material from others, e.g. by non-conductors to prevent the transfer of electricity, heat, etc.

   Ceramic can be used to insulate power lines.

Synonyms

• isolate

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• insulate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• insulate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• alunites

Latin

Participle

?nsul?te

1. vocative masculine singular of ?nsul?tus

English

Etymology

[1800] From French isolation, from isolé, placed on an island (thus away from other people). Equivalent to isolate +? -ion.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?a?s??le???n/
• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

isolation (countable and uncountable, plural isolations)

1. (chiefly uncountable) The state of being isolated, detached, or separated; the state of being away from other people.
2. The act of isolating.
3. (diplomacy, of a country) The state of not having diplomatic relations with other countries (either with most or all other countries, or with specified other countries).
   • 1975, W. Raymond Duncan, “Problems of Cuban Foreign Policy”, chapter 20 of Irving Louis Horowitz (editor), Cuban Communism, Fifth Edition, Transaction (publisher, 1985), page 486:

     As of 1975, diplomatic ostracism is still imposed by the Organization of American States (OAS). The inter-American community also exercises a trade embargo against Cuba. But even within this context of hemispheric isolation, Havana’s diplomacy is strikingly contradictory.

   • 1993 September, Jon Brook Wolfsthal, “The Israeli initiative”, in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Volume 49, Number 7, page 8:

     Israel could offer to ease North Korea’s isolation with diplomatic recognition, […] ¶ […] But Washington’s strategy of increasing North Korean isolation left no room for back-channel talks with Tel Aviv, […]

   • 2009, Dore Gold, The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West, Regnery Publishing, ?ISBN, page 49:

     It [Europe] now pressed Washington to begin direct talks with Tehran, but Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, Rice’s point man on Iran, still stressed that diplomatic isolation of Iran—and not diplomatic engagement—was the only acceptable approach for dealing with the Iranian nuclear challenge.

5. (chemistry) The obtaining of an element from one of its compounds, or of a compound from a mixture
6. (medicine) The separation of a patient, suffering from a contagious disease, from contact with others (compare: quarantine)
7. (databases) A database property that determines when and how changes made in one transaction are visible to other concurrent transactions.
8. (psychology) A Freudian defense mechanism in which a person suppresses a harmful thought from developing into a train of thought.

Related terms

• insulate
• insulation
• isolate
• isolatedness

Derived terms

Translations

French

Etymology

isoler +? -ation. Attested since 1774.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /i.z?.la.sj??/

Noun

isolation f (plural isolations)

1. isolation; insulation

2. (linguistics) isolation (low number of morphemes per word on average)
3. (psychology) isolation (a Freudian defense mechanism)

Usage notes

• isolation nowadays has a connotation of physical isolation or insulation as a form of protection, chiefly of objects.
• isolement nowadays has a connotation of isolation in the sense of exclusion.
• In older texts, the two may be used more interchangeably.

Related terms

• isoler
• isolement

Further reading

• “isolation” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).