Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To cause to be in a detached or isolated position. See Synonyms at isolate.
- v. To prevent the passage of heat, electricity, or sound into or out of, especially by surrounding with a nonconducting material.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make an island of (a place) by surrounding it with water.
- To place in an isolated situation or condition; set apart from immediate contact or association with others; detach; segregate.
- In electricity and thermotics, to separate, as an electrified or heated body, from other bodies by the interposition of a non-conductor; more specifically, in the case of electricity, to separate from the earth (since an electrified body tends to part with its electricity to the earth). This is accomplished by supporting the body by means of silk, glass, resin, or some other non-conductor, or surrounding it with such materials. See
insulator . Alsoisolate . - In chem., to free from combination with other substances.
- In entomology, detached from other parts or marks of the same kind.
Wiktionary
- v. To separate, detach, or isolate.
- v. To separate a body or material from others, eg. by non-conductors to prevent the transfer of electricity, heat, etc.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To make an island of.
- v. To place in a detached situation, or in a state having no communication with surrounding objects; to isolate; to separate.
- v. (Elec. & Thermotics) To prevent the transfer of electricity or heat to or from (bodies) by the interposition of nonconductors.
WordNet 3.0
- v. protect from heat, cold, or noise by surrounding with insulating material
- v. place or set apart
Etymologies
- From Late Latin insulatus ("made like an island"), past participle of insulare ("to make like an island"), from insula ("island"); see insular. (Wiktionary)
- Latin īnsula, island + -ate1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I suppose I could also consider installing a suspended ceiling inside to help insulate from the radiant heat from the slab, but that wouldn't be my preferred option if I can avoid it.”
“The idea that 12-year terms insulate Regents from political winds should be recognized as fantasy.”
The Berkeley Daily Planet, The East Bay's Independent Newspaper
“Like the Electoral College -- which unfortunately still remains -- the point was to "insulate" politics from popular will.”
The Huffington Post: Sally Kohn: The 17th Amendment is Good for America
“But it was either in private or he was protected by a group of people who knew how to kind of insulate him.”
“My muffaletta recipe from the Chicago Tribune about 12 years ago, also adds cream cheese as a first light layer to 'insulate' from too much soppage, I suppose, and also has tomato slices and fresh spinach leaves.”
“But the effort to "insulate" federal judges from intellectual influences is foolish.”
“And those kind of insulate some of the Republicans that are in trouble because there's more Republicans now in some of those districts.”
“Therefore you must "insulate" yourself -- that is, put on your hands something that will not let the electricity into your body -- or stand on something that will "insulate" you; for instance, rubber gloves or rubber tobacco pouches, dry silk handkerchiefs, other silk garments or newspapers used in place of gloves if necessary.”
“Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he's attracted to the idea of separating financial institutions' activities to "insulate" the economy from the risks taken by investment banks.”
“Juels said that it is important that cloud computing providers make sure they build in safeguards to "insulate" virtual machine from these kinds of data breaches.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘insulate’.
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SCIE - EU nomenclature
All the scientific words found in the official EU nomenclature. For the screening I used Vocabgrabber of the Visual Thesaurus.
silicon, silica, shrimp, shelve, shallot, serine, seedling, septic, secretin, seaweed, screening, Scomber and 1171 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
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bad memory
copper, anvil, oblique, thrust, shrine, welfare, farewell, bitter, faction, sectarian, tangible, spectacle and 134 more...
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TECH - department store terms
lift, flask, datum, cater, absorbable, access road, account book, acoustic, adding machine, adhesive, advisory service, aeration and 231 more...
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Palynology
List of terms used in the study and classification of pollen and spores - both fossil and modern.
tetrad, abporal, ectoaperture, lacuna, grain, spore, lophate, acalymmate, monad, polyad, hexad, calymmate and 513 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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lesson 16
bounty, camouflage, ebb, forage, harass, insulate, lethargic, maneuver, mottled, murky, proximity, replenish and 3 more...
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raisesdead's Words
moist, undulate, pulsating, inflamatory, crisp, florescent, effervescent, nimrod, doodle, ergo, postulate, forsake and 3 more...
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Lesson 1
abroad, abrupt, acceptable, acclaim, actually, apparently, primitive, metabolism, insulate, assemble, adverse, advice and 8 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for insulate.
jeen0809 It is necessary to insulate a wire with a rubber tube. Mar 14, 2007