quarantine

(kwar'an-ten) [It. qua rani in a; quarania, forty.] period (originally forty days) of detention of ships and their pa engers coming from a port where smallpox, yellow fever, or some infectious disease prevails, z. To detain ships and their pa engers when the former have come from an infected port, or any of the latter are ill of an infectious disease. 3. place where pa engers coming by ship from an infected port are detained until the incubation period of the disease in question has pa ed. 4. The isolation of a person sick with a contagious disease, land q. the establishment of a q. against persons approaching a city by land from an infected district. shotgun q., the enforcing of a land q. by means of soldiers or an armed guard.