Depopulate

//diːˈpɒpjəleɪt// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc. transitive

    "Where is this viper That would depopulate the city and Be every man himself?"

  2. 2
    reduce in population wordnet
  3. 3
    To remove the components from a circuit board. transitive
  4. 4
    To become depopulated, to lose its population. intransitive

    "[…] 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."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Depopulated (sense 1). not-comparable, obsolete

    "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: […]"

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

    "A world it was to see […] his daily peregrinacion in the desert, felles and craggy mountains of that bareine vnfertile and depopulate countrey."

Synonyms

All synonyms
desolatebutcherdecimatedepeopledevastatedispeople

Example

More examples

"Following the closure of the factory, the surrounding villages began to depopulate."

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.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.