dispeople

The invading army sought to dispeople the entire region.

Definition

1. Verb (transitive):
   • To depopulate: "dispeople" means to remove the inhabitants from a place, causing it to become empty of people or sparsely populated.

Usage Examples

• (The disease removed the inhabitants, leaving villages empty.)
• (Conflict has caused the towns to lose their population.)
• (The policies led to a reduction in rural inhabitants.)

Advanced Usage

• "to dispeople the land": a poetic or formal expression meaning to render a region empty of its population.

  • The conqueror's decree dispeopled the land, leaving only ruins behind. (The order caused the land to become uninhabited.)

• "dispeopled" (past participle as adjective): referring to a place that has been emptied of its inhabitants.

  • The dispeopled city stood silent under the grey sky. (The city had no residents.)

Variants and Related Words

• Dispeopling (present participle/gerund): the act of removing inhabitants.

  • The dispeopling of the island was a tragic event. (The removal of the island's population was tragic.)

• Dispeopled (adjective): describing a place with no or few people.

  • The dispeopled countryside seemed eerie. (The countryside was empty of people.)

Synonyms

• Depopulate: to reduce the number of people living in a place.
• Unpeople: (rare) to remove people from a place.
• Desolate: to make a place empty and lifeless (often used more broadly).

Antonyms

• Populate: to fill a place with inhabitants.
• Settle: to establish a population in a place.

Related Idioms

• To lay waste: to destroy and empty a place (often used in similar contexts).

  • The invading army laid waste to the region, dispeopling it entirely. (They destroyed and emptied the region.)

• To empty out: to cause a place to lose its inhabitants.

  • The economic crisis emptied out the small town. (The crisis caused the town to lose its population.)