quarantine.

1. Isolation or restriction of people, organisms or materials to prevent a suspected infectious or other hazard from spreading.

2. To isolate or restrict access to someone or something to prevent a suspected hazard from spreading.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• place in quarantine
• quarantine period

On the page

The crew placed the newly arrived organism in quarantine while its risks remained uncertain.

The quarantine period was stated as a precaution rather than a diagnosis.

Usage notes

Primary category: horror / sci-fi / gothic. Forms: Singular quarantine; plural quarantines for distinct periods or arrangements. Often uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: hazard description, speculative setting, bodily condition, scene explanation. Disciplines: genre writing, science-informed description, clinical and safety vocabulary. Commonness: moderately common. Third-person singular: quarantines.