Word.ws English Dictionary

depopulate

/diːˈpɒpjəleɪt/US/diˈpɑpjəleɪt/

depopulate verb: to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.

Verb

depopulate (third-person singular simple present depopulates, present participle depopulating, simple past and past participle depopulated)

  1. (transitive) To reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.
    • Where is this viper / That would depopulate the city and / Be every man himself?c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • So two young Mountain Lions, nurs’d with Blood / In deep Recesses of the gloomy Wood, / Rush fearless to the Plains, and uncontroul’d / Depopulate the Stalls and waste the Fold;1716, Homer, “Book V”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume II, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 48, lines 681-685
  2. (transitive) To remove the components from a circuit board.
  3. (intransitive) To become depopulated, to lose its population.
    • […] the country […] has been rapidly depopulating, and utterly draining of its vital resources, till the unhappy population have sunk to the lowest depth of misery.1849, William Henry Bartlett, chapter 1, in The Nile Boat; or, Glimpses of the Land of Egypt, London: Arthur Hall, Virtue & Co, page 29
    • […] on the 2d of December our Henry Sixth made his Joyous Entry dismally enough into disaffected and depopulating Paris.1917, Robert Louis Stevenson, Poems of François Villon, Boston: John W. Luce, Critical Biography, page 1

Adjective

depopulate (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) Depopulated (sense 1).
    • And ſo in that realme were continually two kynges, vntil the kynge of Mede had depopulate the country, and brought the people in captiuite to the citie of Babylon: […]1531, Thomas Elyot, “That one ſoueraigne gouernour ought to be ina publike weale. And what damage bath happened, where a mulitude hath had equal authoꝛite without any ſoueraygne.”, in The Boke Named...
  2. (obsolete) Barren, devoid of inhabitants; utterly destroyed, devastated.
    • A world it was to see […] his daily peregrinacion in the desert, felles and craggy mountains of that bareine vnfertile and depopulate countrey.a. 1548 (date written), Edward Hall, Richard Grafton, “[The .] The Firste Yere.”, in The Vnion of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre & Yorke, […], London: […] Richardi Graftoni […]...
    • Wroth for bright-cheekt Bryseis losse; whom from Lyrnessus spoiles, / (His owne exploit) he brought away, as trophee of his toiles, / When that town was depopulate;[1611?], Homer, “The Second Booke of Homers Iliads”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC, page 30

depopulate meaning in Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam

depopulate in Hindi

to depopulate
उजाड़ना ujāṛnā

depopulate in Tamil

மக்கள் தொகையைக் குறைவாக்கு, மக்கள் தொகை குறையப்பெறு, குடியிருப்பவர்களை இல்லாமற் செய், மக்கள் தொகை குறைக்கப்பட்ட, மக்கள் தொகை அருகிய, குடியழிந்த

depopulate in Malayalam

ജനസംഖ്യ കുറയ്ക്കുക, നിർജ്ജനമാക്കുക, ജനശൂന്യമാക്കുക

Synonyms of depopulate

All synonyms of depopulate

Forms of depopulate

third-person singular presentdepopulates
present participledepopulating
past participledepopulated
pastdepopulated

Origin of depopulate

First attested in 1531; borrowed from Latin dēpopulātus, perfect active participle of dēpopulor (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)). Compare depeople, French dépeupler, Italian spopolare, Spanish despoblar, Portuguese despovoar and Romanian despopora; by surface analysis, de- + populate. Participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.

Words formed from depopulate

Questions about depopulate

What does depopulate mean?
Depopulate means to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.
What is depopulate in Hindi?
Depopulate in Hindi is उजाड़ना (ujāṛnā). See Depopulate meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is depopulate?
Depopulate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce depopulate?
Depopulate is pronounced /diːˈpɒpjəleɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of depopulate?
The past tense of depopulate is depopulated.

Words near depopulate in the dictionary

  1. depopularization
  2. depopularize
  3. depopularized
  4. depopularizes
  5. depopularizing
  6. depopulate
  7. depopulated
  8. depopulates
  9. depopulating
  10. depopulation
  11. depopulations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: depopulate (page history and authors); उजाड़ना (Hindi) (page history and authors); depopulate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); depopulate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “depopulate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/depopulate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.