What does "self-quarantine" mean?

Isolation by avoiding physical contact with other individuals, especially in order to reduce the transmission of a contagious disease.

What is a synonym for "self-quarantine"?

Common synonyms include: home isolation, home quarantine, isolate, self-isolate, self-isolation.

Pronounced //ˌsɛlfˈkwɒɹəntiːn//.

//ˌsɛlfˈkwɒɹəntiːn// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Isolation by avoiding physical contact with other individuals, especially in order to reduce the transmission of a contagious disease. countable, uncountable
"We apply this model to a large urban area (9 million people) and evaluate the effect of situational awareness (early detection and response) and several response measures, such as mass vaccination, quarantine, closure, mass-transit shutdown, and voluntary self-quarantine on the spread of the epidemic and on the total number of casualties."

Verb

1
To refrain from physical contact with other individuals, especially in order to reduce the transmission of a contagious disease. intransitive
"He said that he became sick with relatively mild symptoms about a week ago and self-quarantined at his home."

"We've been asked to self-quarantine for two weeks."

From self- + quarantine.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.