depopulate
Americanverb (used with object)
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depopulates,
present (3rd person singular)
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depopulated,
past participle, past
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depopulating
present participle
adjective
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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depopulatesimple
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depopulatessimple
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have depopulatedperfect
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has depopulatedperfect
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am depopulatingprogressive
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are depopulatingprogressive
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is depopulatingprogressive
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have been depopulatingperfect progressive
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has been depopulatingperfect progressive
Past
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depopulatedsimple
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had depopulatedperfect
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was depopulatingprogressive
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were depopulatingprogressive
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had been depopulatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of depopulate
1525–35; < Latin dēpopulātus devastated (past participle of dēpopulārī ), equivalent to dē- de- + populātus; see populate
Vocabulary lists containing depopulate
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:
Mr Gates has long been the subject of multiple conspiracy theories - the most extreme of which claim that he is part of an effort to depopulate the world.
From BBC ● Dec. 3, 2024
In general, Canada — like Ireland, where the fertility rate is about 1.77, higher than in Canada but still below replacement — faces a choice: Either take in migrants or depopulate.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 7, 2024
“The county is putting its money where its mouth is in trying to depopulate the jail,” Kendrick said in an interview Friday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2023
The scale of a fishing operation can also make a big difference: overly intensive methods of catching fish can depopulate entire schools at once and cause serious imbalances in marine ecosystems.
From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2022
A mass exodus from North Korea could substantially depopulate the country, undermine its already inadequate capacity to grow food, and weaken—or perhaps even topple—the gov-ernment.
From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden
If the resuscitation of the State is desired by his labor, neither will be secured by a persecution which depopulates townships, and prevents the introduction of new labor and of capital.”
From The Nation's Peril Twelve Years' Experience in the South by Anonymous
In the Hebrides the failure of a harvest almost depopulates an island.
From The Lusiad or The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem by Luís de Camões
Some of the streets, especially that of Grand Chantier, he "depopulates."
From The French Revolution - Volume 3 by John Durand
Hence, "the horror of the taille depopulates the rural districts, concentrating in the towns all the talents and all the capital5254."
From The Ancient Regime by John Durand
After a short period of activity, when the equal balance of loss and reparation is once removed, man quits the stage of life, and the law of mortality depopulates the earth.
From Philosophical Letters of Frederich Schiller by Friedrich Schiller
The Almaraz plant, which contributes around seven percent of Spain's electricity production, is a key source of industry and employment in mostly rural, depopulated Extremadura.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
Whatever its actual length, there is no doubting the war’s traumatic impact upon France, where swaths of countryside were depopulated for decades, or the grievous toll upon combatants and civilians alike.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026
The fear is that if these valleys become depopulated, other aspects of unique mountain culture could be lost too - like the Tschäggättä, traditional wooden masks, unique to the Loetschental valley.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2025
“Too many people think there’s nothing here, that we’re depopulated, so they try to place him here.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2024
Space was an anesthetic; seventy million miles of space numbed you, put memory to sleep, depopulated Earth, erased the past, and allowed these people here to go on with their work.
From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
But when is the last time you read about anything good taking place in a deindustrialized, depopulating, or aging community?
From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2024
While most villages in Portugal’s interior are slowly depopulating, even former residents come back for these feasts.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 13, 2023
The county also committed to depopulating the jail by diverting some people into noncarceral beds.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2023
“There’s also considerable wage pressure in small towns and cities that are depopulating, but that is a sign of distress, not of rising productivity.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 3, 2019
At page 149 he lets us into the secret of the depopulating process which has been going on in Central Africa the last fifty years.
From Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This Important Subject by E. N. Elliott
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.
