PRM

Noun

population (plural populations)

1. The people living within a political or geographical boundary.
   • The population of New Jersey will not stand for this!
2. (broadly) The people with a given characteristic.
   • India has the third-largest population of English-speakers in the world.
3. A count of the number of residents within a political or geographical boundary such as a town, a nation or the world.
   • The town’s population is only 243.
   1. The number of living cells in a pattern.
      • This is one of several known "sawtooth" patterns, in which the population is unbounded but does not tend to infinity.1996 December 16, Dean Hickerson, “What is his name ?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)
4. A collection of organisms of a particular species, sharing a particular characteristic of interest, most often that of living in a given area.
   • A seasonal migration annually changes the populations in two or more biotopes drastically, many twice in opposite senses.
5. A group of units (persons, objects, or other items) enumerated in a census or from which a sample is drawn.
   • […]it is possible it [the Anglo-Saxon race] might stand second to the Scandinavian countries [in average height] if a fair sample of their population were obtained.1883, Francis Galton et al., “Final Report of the Anthropometric Committee”, in Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, page 269

See all 8 meanings of population