segregate

The prefix se- means "apart", so when you segregate something you set it apart from the herd. The word typically means separating something undesirable from the healthy majority. During the apple harvest, damaged fruit is segregated from the main crop and used for cider. In prisons, hardened criminals are segregated from youthful offenders. Lepers used to be segregated from the general population because they were thought to be highly infectious. The opposite of segregate is often integrate, and the two words were in the news almost daily for decades as African-Americans struggled to be admitted into all-white schools and neighborhoods.

Examples of segregate in a Sentence

Verb The civil rights movement fought against practices that segregated blacks and whites. Many states at that time continued to segregate public schools.

Recent Examples on the Web: Verb An industry plan to segregate infected patients and avert community spread was slow in coming together. — Dave Altimari, courant.com, "Unprepared: Lapses in planning, communication and safety left Connecticut’s nursing homes exposed when the coronavirus pandemic struck in force," 18 Oct. 2020 This lets companies identify and segregate the risky exposures which need immediate attention and helps companies save themselves from serious damage. — Wilfred Sigler, Quartz India, "The pandemic has made investments in cybersecurity even more essential," 24 Sep. 2020 Two years later, the city adopted a plan to explicitly segregate African Americans by only offering them city services east of what is now I-35. — CBS News, "Headstones spray painted in historically Black cemetery in Austin," 22 Sep. 2020 The University of Michigan-Dearborn expressed regret on Wednesday after its Instagram account appeared to encourage students to segregate themselves for discussions about race and current events. — Sam Dorman, Fox News, "College backtracks after designating separate discussion groups for White students and 'people of color'," 9 Sep. 2020 In June, meanwhile, Princeton acceded to longstanding demands to strip Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public policy school, since his most notorious public policy as President of the United States was to segregate the federal workforce. — Bryan Greene, Smithsonian Magazine, "Born Enslaved, Patrick Francis Healy ‘Passed’ His Way to Lead Georgetown University," 8 Sep. 2020 Certain cultures decree these spaces segregate men and women—in Morocco, hammams, often located near mosques to aid in pre-payer washing rituals, are split into two, with separate entrances for women and men. — Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, "Bathhouse for One? I Tried New York’s Latest Private Spa Experience," 21 Aug. 2020 This is Jess Row, a writer whose most recent book explores how white authors, in their fiction, often segregate their white characters from people of color – just like in real life. — Henry Gass, The Christian Science Monitor, "Why Black and white Americans see the justice system differently (audio)," 10 Aug. 2020 Today, reserves can be isolated and can segregate Indigenous people from educational and economic opportunities. — Annie Hylton, Longreads, "Searching For Mackie," 10 Aug. 2020 Recent Examples on the Web: Noun Other sensitive data, including family trees and DNA data, are stored on segregate systems that are separate from those that house email addresses. — Kirsten Korosec, Fortune, "Ancestry Site MyHeritage Says 92 Million User Accounts Have Been Compromised," 5 June 2018 As public schools re-segregate, the rise in charter schools has not helped this trend. — Lincoln Anthony Blades, Teen Vogue, "Why Brown v Board of Education Is More Important Than Ever," 17 May 2018 There is also another cultural trend that has led many in our nation to ideologically self-segregate, not based on race, but based on ideology. — James Lankford, National Review, "The Best Approach To Racism: Engage Each Other," 19 Aug. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'segregate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.