isolation

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

• IPA^(key): /ˌaɪsəˈleɪʃən/

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

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.

   She lived her final year in complete isolation, not wanting to see anybody.

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”, in Irving Louis Horowitz, editor, Cuban Communism‎, 5th edition, Transaction, published 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.

   • September 1993, 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.

4. (chemistry) The obtaining of an element from one of its compounds, or of a compound from a mixture
5. (medicine) The separation of a patient, suffering from a contagious disease, from contact with others (compare: quarantine)

   Upon returning from the field, he went into isolation for a week so as not to infect anyone with potential diseases.

6. (databases) A database property that determines when and how changes made in one transaction are visible to other concurrent transactions.
7. (psychology) A Freudian defense mechanism in which a person suppresses a harmful thought from developing into a train of thought.

• insulate
• insulation
• isolate
• isolatedness

From isoler +‎ -ation. Attested since 1774.

• IPA^(key): /i.zɔ.la.sjɔ̃/

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isolation f (plural isolations)

1. isolation; insulation

   isolation thermique ― heat insulation

   isolation phonique ― soundproofing

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

• 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.

• isoler
• isolement

• “isolation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.