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Definitions

populate

[pop-yuh-leyt] / ˈpɒp jəˌleɪt /
VERB
supply with inhabitants
Synonyms
Antonyms
STRONG


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:

As McVay prepares for his 10th season, his influence and growing coaching tree will once again populate the NFL.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026

In the same way, particles containing strange and anti-strange quarks populate the strangeonium region.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 2, 2026

In fact, daemons of all stripes populate the series – and always in pairs.

From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026

Meanwhile, the walkers, families and nature lovers who usually populate the village during the summer months have been replaced by police, forensics officers and journalists.

From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026

I tried to imagine the future, to populate it with professors, homework, classrooms, but my mind couldn’t conjure them.

From "Educated" by Tara Westover

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

He populates his posts with a colorful cast of celebrities: actors like Tim Allen and Whoopi Goldberg or musicians like Jason Aldean and Kid Rock.

From New York Times ● Jun. 13, 2024

As long as we have reasonable wants we get on comfortably, but it is the struggle after luxuries that fills society with distress, and populates prisons, and sends hundreds of people stark mad.

From Around The Tea-Table by T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt) Talmage

A new wave of battery facilities are being built in or near densely populated areas, where some residents and local officials worry about the risk of fires.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned residents of the country's most populated city about strong wind gusts and the possibility of downed power lines, saying "Don't travel if you don't have to."

From Barron's ● Sep. 26, 2026

Tracy has the advantages that Susanville does not: It’s next to Interstate 5 along a busy commercial corridor in a populated and growing section of the state.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026

Bangladesh is one of the world's most densely populated tropical countries, making it a useful example of both the difficulties facing insect conservation and the opportunities for improving it.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 9, 2026

Yet the number of European settlers was always very small, and today New Guinea is still populated largely by New Guineans.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

"Yes. There's a Catholic priest there who seems to be populating the whole country with redundant British and American organs."

From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2026

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

Hyams said the Ralph Lauren Christmas images populating social media fuel her generation’s desire for nostalgia.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 22, 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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