Definition

1. Verb (transitive):
   • To supply with inhabitants; to cause people or animals to live in a place: The primary meaning involves filling an area with residents, either by encouraging settlement or introducing a species.
   • To live in; to inhabit: This meaning describes the state of residing in a particular area.

Usage and Examples

• Transitive Verb (to fill with inhabitants):

  • The government aims to populate the new province with skilled workers.
  • Conservationists populated the nature reserve with endangered birds.
  • The game warden populated the forest with deer.

• Verb (to inhabit):

  • Various tribes have populated this region for centuries.
  • These remote islands are populated by a small community of fishermen.
  • Deer are populating the northern woods in greater numbers this year.

Advanced Usage

• In computing and data contexts: To enter data into a field, table, or database.
  • The script will automatically populate the form with your saved information.
  • We need to populate the new database with records from the old system.

Variants and Related Words

• Population (n): The total number of people or organisms living in a particular area.
  • The city's population has grown rapidly.
• Populous (adj): Having a large population; densely populated.
  • Jakarta is one of the world's most populous cities.
• Depopulate (v): To substantially reduce the number of inhabitants in an area.
  • The war threatened to depopulate the entire region.
• Repopulate (v): To populate an area again.
  • Efforts are underway to repopulate the river with native fish.

Synonyms

• Inhabit: To live in or occupy a place.
• Settle: To establish a community in a new place.
• Colonize: To send settlers to and establish control over an area.
• Occupy: To reside or have a presence in a space.

Antonyms

• Depopulate: To remove or reduce the population.
• Abandon: To leave a place empty.
• Desert: To leave a place, making it empty.

Related Phrases and Collocations

• Densely/Highly populated: Describing an area with many inhabitants per unit area.
  • Tokyo is a densely populated metropolis.
• Sparsely/Thinly populated: Describing an area with few inhabitants.
  • The interior of the country is very sparsely populated.
• Populate with: The typical preposition used when introducing inhabitants.
  • The program seeks to populate the area with young families.

Verb

1. fill with inhabitants
   • populate the forest with deer and wild boar for hunting
2. inhabit or live in; be an inhabitant of
   • People lived in Africa millions of years ago
   • The people inhabited the islands that are now deserted
   • this kind of fish dwells near the bottom of the ocean
   • deer are populating the woods