Dictionary

depopulate en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /diˈpɑpjəleɪt/ (General-American)
• /diːˈpɒpjəleɪt/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

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.

Meanings

1. (as a participle, not-comparable, 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 the Governour […], London: […] Tho[mas] Bertheleti, →OCLC, 1st boke, folio 9, recto:
2. (as a participial adjective, not-comparable, obsolete) Barren, devoid of inhabitants; utterly destroyed, devastated.
   • 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:
   • 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 […], published 1548, →OCLC:

Deriveds

depopulacy

Relateds

depeople

wikipedia: Early Modern English

depopulate en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /diˈpɑpjəleɪt/ (General-American)
• /diːˈpɒpjəleɪt/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

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.

Meanings

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] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
   • 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:
   • The agricultural modernization of the 1950s and 1960s, the migration of the sons and daughters of peasants to the cities, had been steadily depleting and depopulating the French countryside. 2005, Tony Judt, chapter 17, in Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, New York: Penguin, page 548:
   • There are uſually reckoned twelve of theſe Iſlands ; but it will appear, from the chart of the North part of the Pacific Ocean hereafter inſerted, that if the ſmall iſlets and rocks are counted in, then their whole number will amount to above twenty. They were formerly moſt of them well inhabited ; and, even not ſixty years ago, the three principal Iſlands, Guam, Rota, and Tinian together, are ſaid to have contained above fifty thouſand people : But ſince that time Tinian hath been entirely depopulated ; and only two or three hundred Indians have been left at Rota, to cultivate rice for the Iſland of Guam ; ſo that now no more than Guam can properly be ſaid to be inhabited. This Iſland of Guam is the only ſettlement of the Spaniards ; here they keep a governor and garriſon, and here the Manila ſhip generally touches for refreſhment, in her paſſage from Acapulco to the Philippines. 1748, Richard Walter, A Voyage Round the World, in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV. by George Anson, Eſq; Commander in Chief of a Squadron of His Majeſty's Ships, ſent upon an Expedition to the South-Seas., London: J. and P. Knapton, →OCLC, pages 337–338:
2. (transitive) To remove the components from a circuit board.
3. (intransitive) To become depopulated, to lose its population.
   • Rural Canada was depopulating and immigrants were needed. 1994, Kenneth Coward, The Welfare: A Concise Archival History of Social Services, Owen Sound, Ontario, Appendix III, p. 56:
   • […] 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:
   • Visitors dwindled over time. […] My world shrank as it depopulated. It became my room, the front room, and the kitchen. 2008, Gary Presley, chapter 15, in Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, page 80:

Forms

Deriveds

depopulative

Relateds

depopulation · depopulant · depopulator

Synonyms

unpopulate · unpeople · depeople · dispeople · desolate

Translations (11)

ca despoblar (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · ga bánaigh (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · fr dépeupler (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · cy diboblogi (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · da affolke (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · io despopulizar (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · cs vylidnit (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · nl ontvolken (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · de entvölkern (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · pl wyludniać (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.) · pl wyludnić (to reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.)

wikipedia: Early Modern English