quarantine
Definitions
General English
- noun a period of time when an animal or a person, usually coming from another country, has to be kept apart from others to avoid the risk of passing on diseases
Agriculture
- noun the period when an animal, person, plant or ship just arrived in a country is kept separate in case it carries a serious disease, to allow the disease time to develop and so be detected
- verb to put a person, animal or ship in quarantine
Electronics
- The moving of a virus-infected file to a location where it less likely to do harm to the system. Such a location may be a folder only accessible by the anti-virus software, where it can be examined, or otherwise held for future use or deletion.
Law
- noun a period when a ship, animal or person newly arrived in a country has to be kept away from others in case there is a danger of carrying diseases
Medical
- noun the situation in which a person, animal or ship just arrived in a country is kept isolated in case it carries a serious disease, to allow the disease time to develop and be detected
- noun the period of such isolation to prevent the spread of disease
Travel
- noun a situation in which a person, animal or ship just arrived in a country is kept isolated for a period of time in case he, she or it carries a serious disease
Origin & History of “quarantine”
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.
