dispeople

[dis-pee-puhl]

verb (used with object)

dispeopled, dispeopling 

1. to deprive of people; person; depopulate.

Other Word Forms

• dispeoplement noun
• dispeopler noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of dispeople¹

First recorded in 1480–90; dis- ¹ + people

Example Sentences

Dispeople, dis-pē′pl, v.t. to empty of inhabitants.

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Say that, until I get them, every day I'll hang two Spaniards though I dispeople The Spanish Main.

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It was not fit to dispeople a country; nor prudent to grieve the King's best friends, who mostly had some concern in those unfortunate men; or expedient to give too just grounds of clamour to the disaffected.

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Their chiefs, Messapus, and Ufens, and Mezentius, scorner of the gods, begin to enrol forces on all sides, and dispeople the wide fields of husbandmen.

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Arthur was no friend to the pursuit of the grail; not that he loves not, with a passion white as sun's flame, the good and pure, but that he has sagacity to see such quest will scatter the round table and its fellowship, and would dispeople his forces, whose presence makes for peace and sovereignty in all his realm and compels the sovereignty of law.

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