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depopulate.

To reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/diːˈpɒpjəleɪt/Received-Pronunciation/diˈpɑpjəleɪt/General-American
  1. To reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.

    transitive
  2. To remove the components from a circuit board.

    transitive
  3. To become depopulated, to lose its population.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

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.

adj/diːˈpɒpjəleɪt/Received-Pronunciation/diˈpɑpjəleɪt/General-American
  1. Depopulated (sense 1).

    not-comparable · obsolete
  2. Barren, devoid of inhabitants; utterly destroyed, devastated.

    not-comparable · obsolete
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.