Malthus
Americannoun
noun
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.
The population has grown, much as Malthus envisioned, but the means to support that population has grown faster.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Thomas Malthus promulgated the theory that population would grow at a faster rate than the means to support that population could, and so there would have to be ways to reduce population in unpleasant ways.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
In 1798, British economist Thomas Malthus forecast that an increasing population would soon outstrip, disastrously, nature’s capacity to feed so many people; in 1968, the title of an influential tract spoke of a “population bomb.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 19, 2022
This is unfortunate, because Malthus never seems to have advocated for violence.
From Salon ● Nov. 15, 2022
Reading Malthus and thinking about the natural world, Charles realized that nature was not happy and peaceful, as Paley had described in his natural theology books.
From "Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith" by Deborah Heiligman
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.
