- 1[often passive] populate something to live in an area and form its population synonym inhabit a heavily/densely/sparsely/thinly populated country The island is populated largely by sheep. (figurative) the amazing characters that populate her novels
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- 2populate something to move people or animals to an area to live there The French began to populate the island in the 15th century.
- 3populate something (computing) to add data to a document
populate
verbNAmE//ˈpɑpyəˌleɪt//
Verb Forms present simple I / you / we / they populate he / she / it populates
past simple populated
-ing form populating
Check pronunciation: populate