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:
In the same way, particles containing strange and anti-strange quarks populate the strangeonium region.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 2, 2026
It wants to populate downtown with fun storefronts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
The private sector exists somewhere out there—the source of all that money—but its customs are foreign to the weirdo revolutionaries who populate the world Ms. Barker once made her career in.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
In fact, daemons of all stripes populate the series – and always in pairs.
From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026
Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
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
At this season the beauty of every thing around you populates the loneliness of your way.
From Israel Potter by Herman Melville
It’s not that Congress should be populated by only normies, but it’s good to have a solid bloc in the mix.
From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2026
So much so, in fact, that on the Wednesday night that we visited for a sold-out event, the sparsely populated lounge area was nearly silent.
From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2026
Early on, Sakurai exploits the inherent absurdity of telling a story populated by so many ludicrous characters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
The strip was densely populated even before the war began.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Fortunately it was in a thinly populated area and there was some warning.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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
Remarkably, it turns out, the trunk, branches, twigs and leaves of the tree itself—the species populating it—furnish the mechanical components of such a device.
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
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
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
