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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Road Home
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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
“During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, many more unhoused people began to populate our Metro system,” Mayor Karen Bass, who became Metro’s chair in July, said in a statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
Zoos, according to the reporting here, were more than happy to populate their exhibits with the rarest reptiles, whether they were smuggled in or not.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
In fact, daemons of all stripes populate the series – and always in pairs.
From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026
At the lake my father bartered with the Muslim businessmen, known as the Yao, who populate that part of the country.
From "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" by William Kamkwamba
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
Janney’s former showgirl character populates her mansion with taxidermy birds who reflect the plumage of her old career and because, “she is kind of a prisoner in her birdcage of a house with her marriage.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2024
“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
At this season the beauty of every thing around you populates the loneliness of your way.
From Israel Potter by Herman Melville
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
Remote communities, where the nearest town might be hundreds of kilometres away, can sometimes be bumped down the priority list for BC firefighting crews if there are blazes threatening more populated areas, she said.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
"These latest series of attacks follow an alarming pattern of escalating strikes against populated areas," spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
One of these changed into a cow, the other a bull, and they mated, then changed again to a mare and stallion, and so on, down to the ants, and thus the earth was populated.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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
If comprehensively deciphered, the relationships between the species populating the genealogical tree of life, Mr. Telford argues, offer the possibility of understanding the evolutionary history of every component of natural biology.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025
For an hour, in the hostile territory of Parc des Princes, Spurs showed enough determination and creation to keep even PSG's "Ultras" populating Virage Auteuil relatively subdued.
From BBC ● Nov. 26, 2025
Still others played by wearing their glasses while walking around the real world, showing off their virtual pet tigers or populating the streets with their favorite celebrities.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
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.
