To protect something by surrounding it so that heat, sound, or electricity cannot pass easily. It can also mean to protect someone from unpleasant influences or experiences.
From Latin 'insulatus' meaning 'made into an island', from 'insula' (island). The sense shifted from being cut off like an island to being separated from heat, sound, or influence.
To insulate is literally to ‘island’ something—cut it off from what’s around it. We insulate houses from cold, wires from shock, and sometimes ourselves from ideas we don’t like, for better or worse.
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