cordon sanitaire

Noun

cordon sanitaire (plural cordons sanitaires)

1. (public health) A barrier (physical or administrative) to prevent the spread of disease.
   • In accordance with their recommendation, the French Ministry drew a cordon sanitaire round the Spanish frontier. The plague gradually died away with the colder weather of the winter; but the French Ministry did not withdraw the troops who composed the cordon sanitaire.1879, Sir Spencer Walpole, A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815, page 327
   • Bubonic plague had been in relative abeyance since the 1660s, and its explosion into Marseille and Provence in 1720 confirmed the ability of government, through quarantines and cordons sanitaires, to hem the disease in and prevent its diffusion across the country.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 158
2. (broadly) Any barrier to the spread of anything deemed undesirable.
   • The alternative for such a policy was the isolation of Russia and the construction of a cordon sanitaire, in order to contain Bolshevism in the present area.1992, Peter Van Ham, Western Doctrines on East-West Trade: Theory, History and Policy, Springer, →ISBN, page 111