population

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˌpɒp.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, US /ˌpɑː.pjəˈleɪ.ʃən/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin populātiō (“a people, a multitude”) (accusative populātiōnem),^[2][3][4] as if from Latin populus (“a people”),^[2][3] the source of people.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A peopled or inhabited place: 1578, now obsolete.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

The whole number of the inhabitants of a country or town, or the degree to which it is peopled, is from 1612^[5][3] or the 1610s.^[2] The act or process of peopling a country is from 1776.^[2][5] The word was extended to animals and plants from 1803,^[5] to the whole set of items studied in statistics from 1877,^[5] and to a breeding group in genetics from 1889.^[5] The inmates of a prison are its population from 1950.^[5] Population explosion is attested by 1953.^[2] In Wiltshire and Devon population was a dialect form of “palpitation”, as in population of the heart.^[6]

Timeline

• 1578 – an inhabited place.^[5]
• 1612 – the number of inhabitants.^[5][3]
• 1776 – the peopling of a place.^[2][5]
• 1803 – of animals and plants.^[5]
• 1877 – in statistics.^[5]
• 1953 – population explosion.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. All the people living in a particular place.
2. The total number of such people.
3. A particular group of people or animals in an area: the elderly population.
4. (biology) All the organisms of one species living in an area.
5. (statistics) The whole group of items from which a sample is taken.

Word family

• populational
• populationless
• intrapopulation
• overpopulation
• repopulation
• subpopulation
• superpopulation
• population genetics

Related words

• popular
• populate
• populous
• people
• public
• depopulate

Usage notes

An obsolete population, “devastation, laying waste”, from 1552, is a different word.^[5]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)