Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or constituting an island.
  • adjective Living or located on an island.
  • adjective Suggestive of the isolated life of an island.
  • adjective Circumscribed and detached in outlook and experience; narrow or provincial.
  • adjective Anatomy Of or relating to isolated tissue or an island of tissue.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to an island; surrounded by water: opposed to continental.
  • Hemmed in like an island; standing alone; surrounded by what is different or incongruous: as, an insular eminence in a plain.
  • Of or pertaining to the inhabitants of an island; characteristic of insulated or isolated persons; hence, narrow; contracted: as, insular prejudices.
  • In entomology, situated alone: applied to galls which occur singly on a leaf.
  • In anatomy, of or pertaining to the insula of the brain, or island of Reil.
  • noun One who dwells in an island; an islander.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare An islander.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to an island; of the nature, or possessing the characteristics, of an island
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the people of an island; narrow; circumscribed; illiberal; contracted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, pertaining to, being, or resembling an island or islands.
  • adjective Situated on an island.
  • adjective Separate or isolated from the surroundings; having little interaction with external parties; provincial.
  • adjective Having an inward-looking, standoffish, or withdrawn manner.
  • noun An islander.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective narrowly restricted in outlook or scope
  • adjective relating to or characteristic of or situated on an island
  • adjective suggestive of the isolated life of an island

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French insulaire, from Late Latin īnsulāris, from Latin īnsula, island.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin insularis ("of or belonging to an island"), from insula ("an island"), perhaps, from in ("in") + salum ("the main sea").

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Examples

  • The fairly unprecedented pomp of Friday's White House farewell ceremony for Rahm Emanuel speaks to his power and ubiquitousness in insular Washington, as he prepares to run for Mayor of Chicago.

    Mark Greenbaum: Rahm's Rocky Road to the Mayoralty Mark Greenbaum 2010

  • The fairly unprecedented pomp of Friday's White House farewell ceremony for Rahm Emanuel speaks to his power and ubiquitousness in insular Washington, as he prepares to run for Mayor of Chicago.

    Mark Greenbaum: Rahm's Rocky Road to Mayoralty Mark Greenbaum 2010

  • And I'm glad that he is happy in insular little SMA - it's a lovely city - but when I visited there a year or so ago, I found that so many of the local extranjeros seemed to consider themselves so cool just because they could afford to live there that I was almost embarrassed by it.

    Subway? 2006

  • North Dakota politics is often called insular, but this looks like a political version of

    Hot Air » Top Picks 2010

  • Another word Dido often uses is "insular" -- that one describes not her music but herself.

    Original Signal - Transmitting Buzz 2008

  • The fact is that the “silence” on Afghanistan has been most defeaning from the cultural relativist self-described “progressives”, whose actions on Afghanistan can only be described as insular and isolated, leaving women in the third world utterly alone as they struggle for the very rights that feminists here pretend to uphold.

    2009 April 21 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2009

  • The fact is that the “silence” on Afghanistan has been most defeaning from the cultural relativist self-described “progressives”, whose actions on Afghanistan can only be described as insular and isolated, leaving women in the third world utterly alone as they struggle for the very rights that feminists here pretend to uphold.

    Suddenly The Feminists Care About Afghanistan, For Wrong Reasons « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2009

  • Literally the insular was a floating population, and derived the advantage of intercommunication.

    The Confessions of a Beachcomber 2003

  • : We have often been called insular, and isolationist,: Aroon replied.

    Magic's Price Lackey, Mercedes 1990

  • : We have often been called insular, and isolationist,: Aroon replied.

    Magic's Price Lackey, Mercedes 1990

Comments

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  • 4. detached; standing alone; isolated.

    6. narrow-minded or illiberal; provincial: insular attitudes toward foreigners.

    March 18, 2009

  • 43. the state of not wishing to share your coconut tree with other castaways.

    March 18, 2009

  • private but not insular

    December 2, 2010