quarantine
pronunciation
How to pronounce quarantine in British English:
UK [ˈkwɒrəntiːn]
How to pronounce quarantine in American English:
US [ˈkwɔːrəntiːn]
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- Noun:
- enforced isolation of patients suffering from a contagious disease in order to prevent the spread of disease
- isolation to prevent the spread of infectious disease
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- Verb:
- place into enforced isolation, as for medical reasons
Word Origin
- quarantine
- quarantine: [17] Quarantine denotes etymologically a period of ‘forty’ days. It goes back ultimately to Latin quadrāgintā ‘forty’, whose Italian descendant quaranta formed the basis of the noun quarantina ‘period of forty days’. English used it originally for a ‘period of forty days’ isolation’, but gradually the stipulation of the number of days faded out.=> quarter
- quarantine (n.)
- 1520s, "period of 40 days in which a widow has the right to remain in her dead husband's house." Earlier quarentyne (15c.), "desert in which Christ fasted for 40 days," from Latin quadraginta "forty," related to quattuor "four" (see four). Sense of "period a ship suspected of carrying disease is kept in isolation" is 1660s, from Italian quarantina giorni, literally "space of forty days," from quaranta "forty," from Latin quadraginta. So called from the Venetian custom of keeping ships from plague-stricken countries waiting off its port for 40 days (first enforced 1377) to assure that no latent cases were aboard. The extended sense of "any period of forced isolation" is from 1670s.
- quarantine (v.)
- 1804, from quarantine (n.). Related: Quarantined; quarantining.
Example
- 1. It was unclear how many are already in quarantine .
- 2. Quarantine has become a city ritual .
- 3. Others are in quarantine in beijing 's three-star yanxiang hotel .
- 4. Singapore used cameras and electronic wrist tags to enforce quarantine orders .
- 5. The entire crew remained in shanghai and were put into quarantine .