Insulation

How to spell insulation

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce insulation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does insulation mean?

1. nounMaterial used to prevent the passage of heat, cold, sound, or electricity, or the act of providing such a barrier.

Insulation in a sentence

• The builders packed thick insulation into the loft to cut the heating bills.

• Poor insulation around the wiring caused the cable to overheat.

Where does insulation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun insula, meaning 'island', a piece of land set apart and surrounded by water. From it scholars formed the verb insulate, literally 'to make into an island', and so 'to set apart or isolate'. The thermal and electrical sense grew from that idea of separation: insulation is the material that keeps heat, cold, sound, or electric current from passing across a boundary, just as water isolates an island. English took the building and physics meanings on board in the eighteenth century as engineers needed words for the substances that block the flow of energy. The same insula root surfaces in 'isolate', 'peninsula' (literally 'almost an island'), and even 'insulin', named because it is made in island-like clusters of cells; remembering 'insula = island' fixes the single s and the -sul- middle that writers sometimes garble.

How the word is built

• insul- (from Latin insula: island)
• -ate (verb)
• -ion (noun of action/result)