populate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin populātus, the past participle of populō (“to people, inhabit”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin populus (“people, inhabitants, nation”).^[2][7][8][3] The OED notes that the medieval verb meant "to increase" in a British source of the 6th century and "to people" from the 11th century, and it compares Middle French populer (1472) and Italian popolare (before 1348).^[7] The Latin noun is also the source of people, popular and population.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Peopled, populated: as an adjective, first recorded about 1575 in Edward Hellowes's translation of Guevara's Familiar Epistles;^[7] Barnhart dates the participial adjective to 1574 and Etymonline to the 1570s.^[3][2] The verb, to people or inhabit a country, follows in 1578, in John Florio's Firste Fruites.^[7][3][4]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline dates the verb only to the 1610s and notes that the word was first an adjective in English.^[2] Bacon used it intransitively in 1625 for people or animals multiplying,^[7] and Johnson (1755) entered only this sense, "to breed people", with Bacon's quotation.^[9] An American use for a country growing more populous appears in a letter of George Washington of 1786, and is now rare.^[7] The figurative sense, to fill or occupy, as characters fill a novel, is first found in Emily Dickinson (before 1886).^[7][4] In the late 20th century the verb was taken into electronics, of filling the sockets of a circuit board with components (1977), and into computing, of entering data into a database or other file (1982).^[7] The adjective survived only in poetry.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1575 – adjective, peopled, populated (now obsolete except in poetry).^[7][5]
• 1578 – verb, to people, inhabit, or supply with inhabitants.^[7][3][4]
• 1625 – intransitive, of people or animals, to multiply (rare).^[7]
• 1786 – of a country, to grow more populous (chiefly American, now rare).^[7]
• before 1886 – figuratively, to fill or occupy.^[7]
• 1977 – to fill a circuit board with components.^[7]
• 1982 – to enter data into a database or other file.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To live in a place, or to make up its population; to inhabit: Seabirds populate the cliffs all summer.^[10][4][7]
2. To provide a place with inhabitants; to colonize or people it.^[10][4][7]
3. Figuratively, to fill or occupy: The author populates her stories with eccentric aunts.^[4][7]
4. (computing) To fill a database, form or other file with data.^[7]
5. (electronics) To fit the sockets of a circuit board with components.^[7]
6. (rare) Of people or animals, to multiply; of a country, to become more populous.^[7][4]

Word family

• depopulate
• outpopulate
• overpopulate
• repopulate
• underpopulate

Related words

• people
• popular
• populous
• population

Usage notes

The OED also records an obsolete verb populate, to devastate or ravage (1552–1737), from Latin populor (“to lay waste, plunder”), a word of uncertain origin unrelated to populus.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins