Word of the day: quarantine
The current coronaviris crisis is highlighting certain words. My last word of the day was ‘furlough’. Today I want to look at the word ‘quarantine”.
The word comes from the Italian word for 40: quaranta. Originally, when a ship was suspected of being infected with some contagious disorder, it was obliged to lie off port for a period of 40 days.
Now the term is applied to any period of segregation to prevent infection.