populate
Americanverb (used with object)
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populates,
present (3rd person singular)
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populated,
past participle, past
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populating
present participle
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to inhabit; live in; be the inhabitants of.
Almost 2 million people populate the immediate area of the factory and were exposed to potential carcinogens.
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to furnish with inhabitants, as by colonization; people.
In the 1700s, the British government populated the colony of New South Wales with convicts.
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Digital Technology. to fill (a digital document): She’s a fantastic photographer who has populated her blog with beautiful images.
The survey results will populate the spreadsheet as soon as they are submitted online.
She’s a fantastic photographer who has populated her blog with beautiful images.
verb
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(often passive) to live in; inhabit
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to provide a population for; colonize or people
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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outpopulateverb (used with object)
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repopulateverb (used with object)
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underpopulateverb (used with object)
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superpopulatedadjective
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unpopulatedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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populatesimple
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populatessimple
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have populatedperfect
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has populatedperfect
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am populatingprogressive
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are populatingprogressive
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is populatingprogressive
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have been populatingperfect progressive
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has been populatingperfect progressive
Past
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populatedsimple
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had populatedperfect
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was populatingprogressive
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were populatingprogressive
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had been populatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of populate
First recorded in 1570–80; from Medieval Latin populātus, past participle of populāre “to populate, inhabit”; see people, -ate 1
Explanation
When people live in or occupy a country, city, or town, they populate it. It doesn’t always refer to people — bugs might populate your kitchen if you leave half-eaten food out. If your family lives alone on an island, you're the only people who populate it. You can also use this verb to mean "be present in," so you might say that vampires populate your favorite books, or that animated characters populate most of the movies you watch. Populate also means "fill in" in computing: "Will you populate that spreadsheet with data?" The Latin populus, or "people," is at the root of populate.
Vocabulary lists containing populate
The Origins of Civilization, Lessons 3–5
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popul (people)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
If so, the Saguaro could offer an important link between the large population of little red dots Webb sees at high redshift and the galaxies that populate the more recent universe.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
It wants to populate downtown with fun storefronts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
In fact, daemons of all stripes populate the series – and always in pairs.
From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026
The characters who populate the Visconti-Sforza deck are so lifelike we half expect them to turn and speak to us.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
I tried to imagine the future, to populate it with professors, homework, classrooms, but my mind couldn’t conjure them.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
One simple Google search of the laptop populates a collection of rave reviews from people who have gotten their hands on the device before it officially becomes available on Wednesday.
From Barron's ● Mar. 10, 2026
Ms. Doucet populates the book with sympathetic characters—the “real cement and steel of the Inter-Con”—conscientious and kind Afghans who keep the hotel going as regimes collapse, rulers change, mores alter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
“Oppenheimer” sticks almost entirely to its protagonist’s point of view yet also populates its three-hour film with an incredible array of faces, all in exquisite detail.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 19, 2023
A robust fiction collection populates the center shelves, flanked by sections devoted to the four founding publishers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2023
It populates human consciousness with heroes, saints and martyrs whose example awakens in everyone touched by it capacities they had not imagined they possessed.
From Century of Light by Baha'i International Community
The largest losses occurred in heavily populated downstream basins where irrigation demands are high, including the Ganges-Brahmaputra, Indus and Amu Darya basins.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026
The local authority has previously said the Highlands, which has large, sparsely populated areas, offered astronomy fans some of the darkest skies in Europe.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
Hilton leads in the state’s more sparsely populated and conservative-leaning areas, including the Central Valley and North Coast/Sierra region.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
But while the fires did come near heavily populated areas—such as Melbourne and Sydney, where many media outlets are based—the total national burn was “well below average,” according to the government’s annual environmental overview.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
Eastern U.S. farming became greatly intensified, and densely populated chiefdoms developed along the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Over the next two years, startups began populating Proto-Town.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
"Yes. There's a Catholic priest there who seems to be populating the whole country with redundant British and American organs."
From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2026
This is how the scores of docuseries and podcasts populating the genre transform actual horror into digestible content.
From Salon ● Feb. 13, 2026
Suddenly, most of the major groups of animals alive today -- including vertebrates which would eventually include humans -- evolved and started populating the world's oceans.
From Barron's ● Jan. 28, 2026
Because of their key role in establishing and populating a colony, settlers may be called colonizers.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
