population
/pɒpjʊˈleɪʃ(ə)n
/noun
1All the inhabitants of a particular place: the island has a population of about 78,000...
- The difference between these numbers expresses the rate of natural growth of the population per 1,000 inhabitants.
- This region inhabited by populations that depend on farming in particular and the agricultural sector in general needs its productive manpower for the promotion of this sector.
- For that matter, the tropical islands' native populations are not all that enamored with seeing an influx of any other races, white or otherwise.
Synonyms
inhabitants, residents, people, citizens, citizenry, public, community, populace, society, natives, occupants, occupiers
informal folk, common folk
humorous denizens
1.1 [with adjective or noun modifier] A particular group or type of people living in a place: measures to speed up integration of the country’s immigrant population...
- These attacks against civilian population centers constitute war crimes.
- The rise in the standard of living of the wage-earning population was important, but it must be kept in perspective.
- In the absence of alternative jobs, much of the local population earns a living or a part-time income from wine.
1.2 [mass noun, with adjective] The extent to which an area is or has been populated: areas of sparse population...
- With a large area and small population, Botswana also faced the problem of access to services in rural areas.
- Leitrim has an even bigger percentage of people living in rural areas but its rural population has fallen in the past 30 years.
- According to him, unemployment in the areas with mixed population was twice as high as the average for the country.
1.3 [mass noun] The action of populating a place.
2 Biology A community of animals, plants, or humans among whose members interbreeding occurs: fluctuations in populations of voles and lemmings...
- Microsatellites are an important source of information about the phylogenetic relationships among human populations.
- Similar changes have occurred in the human and animal populations of other Asian countries, creating an incredible mixing vessel for viruses.
- The trails will enable visitors to easily discover Camp Henry's wide variety of natural habitats with their diverse populations of plants and animals.
3 Statistics A finite or infinite collection of items under consideration.They would not have been significant by using conventional statistical tests for infinite populations....
- And we expect, that although this is a five-year effort to sample these populations and collect the data the analysis will in fact go on for many years.
- The pattern of pairwise nucleotide differences predicted by the model is compared to data collected from sardine populations.
4 Astronomy Each of three groups (designated I, II, and III) into which stars can be approximately divided on the basis of their manner of formation: the motions of Population II objects...
- The Kuiper belt and Oort cloud are populations of icy planetesimals located beyond the orbit of Neptune.
- Here, Hubble astronomers have uncovered, for the first time, a population of infant stars.
- International agreement will determine by how much emissions must contract each year, and then permits to emit will be allocated to all countries on the basis of their populations.
Origin
Late 16th century (denoting an inhabited place): from late Latin populatio(n-), from the verb populare, from populus 'people'.