quarantines

Noun

quarantine (countable and uncountable, plural quarantines)

1. A period of 40 days, particularly
   • Now the Question seems to lye thus, where lay the Seeds of the Infection all this while? How came it to stop so long, and not stop any longer? Either the Distemper did not come immediately by Contagion from Body to Body, or if it did, then a Body may be capable to continue infected, without the...1722, Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year, page 235
   1. (historical) The 40-day period during which a widow is entitled to remain in her deceased husband's home while any dower is collected and returned.
      • Querentyne is where a man dyeth seisyd of a maner place and other landis where of the wyfe ought to be indowed, than the woman shall hold the maner place by .xl. days within which tyme her dower shalbe to her assyned.c. 1523, John Rastell, Exposiciones Terminorum Legum Anglorum, fol. 4v
   2. (historical) The 40-day period of isolation required after 1448 at Venice's lazaret to avoid renewed outbreaks of the bubonic plague and identical policies in other locations.
   3. (historical) A 40-day period formerly imposed by the French king upon warring nobles during which they were forbidden from exacting revenge or continuing to fight.
      • Quarantain of the King, is a Truce of forty Days appointed by S. Louis; during which it was expressly forbid to take any Revenge of the Relation or Friends of People.1728, Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia, "Quarantaine"
2. A period, instance, or state of isolation from the general public or from native livestock and flora enacted to prevent the spread of any contagious disease.
   • The tourists were put in quarantine to ensure none of them would be able to spread the plague.
3. (figuratively) A similar period, instance, or state of rigidly enforced or self-enforced detention or isolation.
   • Now treating Sandwich seems the fittest choice
     For Spain, there to condole and to rejoyce:
     He meets the French, but to avoid all harms,
     Slips into Groine, Embassies bears no Arms.
     There let him languish a long Quarrentine,
     And ne're to England come, till he be clean.1667, John Denham, The Second Advice to a Painter, pages 13–14

See all 17 meanings of quarantine