cordon sanitaire

noun

cor·​don sa·​ni·​taire kȯr-ˌdōⁿ-sä-nē-ˈter 

: a protective barrier (as of buffer states) against a potentially aggressive nation or a dangerous influence (such as an ideology)

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Are those who want a cordon sanitaire against these sorts of cultural values without any foundation in reality? —Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 13 Nov. 2010

Last year’s event operated largely behind a cordon sanitaire and without many foreign participants. —Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 5 Oct. 2022

Indeed, the very fact that the U.S. is sending troops to Romania and Poland, creating in effect a cordon sanitaire, shows that Biden is far more concerned about spillover from a war in Ukraine than Ukraine itself. —Michael A. Cohen, The New Republic, 11 Feb. 2022

But no law requires that people fleeing political violence and natural disaster should be met by the militarized cordon sanitaire in South Texas. —Alicia Schmidt Camacho, The New Yorker, 19 Jan. 2022

Ron Trewyn told us of one sheriff—the exception, rather than the rule—who had mapped the optimal locations for the 40 roadblocks needed to create a cordon sanitaire, quarantining his entire county in the event of an outbreak. —Nicola Twille, Wired, 6 July 2021

Plum Island has the advantage of a natural cordon sanitaire—the ocean. —Nicola Twille, Wired, 6 July 2021

It was confidently assumed that coffee rust could not cross the cordon sanitaire of the Atlantic. —Maryn Mckenna, The Atlantic, 16 Sep. 2020

The cordon sanitaire around Eyam was similar to controls imposed by local magistrates on a number of parishes and villages in the 1660s. —1843, 16 Apr. 2020

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Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, literally, "sanitary cordon," originally in reference to a line of military posts or other barriers enclosing a community stricken by an infectious disease

First Known Use

1920, in the meaning defined above