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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
depopulate
verb
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ She wants to depopulate the earth and liberate the plants.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Depopulate

Depopulate \De*pop"u*late\, v. i. To become dispeopled. [R.]

Whether the country be depopulating or not.
--Goldsmith.

Depopulate

Depopulate \De*pop"u*late\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Depopulated; p. pr. & vb. n. Depopulating.] [L. depopulatus, p. p. of depopulari to ravage; de- + populari to ravage, fr. populus people: cf. OF. depopuler, F. d['e]peupler. See People.] To deprive of inhabitants, whether by death or by expulsion; to reduce greatly the populousness of; to dispeople; to unpeople.

Where is this viper, That would depopulate the city?
--Shak.

Note: It is not synonymous with laying waste or destroying, being limited to the loss of inhabitants; as, an army or a famine may depopulate a country. It rarely expresses an entire loss of inhabitants, but often a great diminution of their numbers; as, the deluge depopulated the earth.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
depopulate

1540s; see de- + populate. Perhaps from Latin depopulatus, past participle of depopulari "to lay waste, ravage." Related: Depopulated; depopulating. Earlier in same sense was dispeplen (early 15c.).

Wiktionary
depopulate

vb. (context transitive English) To reduce the population of a region by disease, war, forced relocation etc.

WordNet
depopulate

v. reduce in population; "The epidemic depopulated the countryside" [syn: desolate]

Usage examples of "depopulate".

In 1501 the Portuguese began to depopulate Labrador, transporting the now extinct Beothuk Indians to Europe and Cape Verde as slaves.

Thus in the depopulated caravansary the little band of connoisseurs jealously bide themselves during the heated season, enjoying to the uttermost the delights of mountain and seashore that art and skill have gathered and served to them.

Their foreparents had moved down from the Caucasus Mountains and resettled depopulated southern Russia, Bulgaria, northern Iran, and Afghanistan.

Gregorius speaks of a malady under the name inguinale which depopulated the Province of Arles.

Then having pursued them in their flight, after he had depopulated the entire Volscian land, he at length in the seventieth year forced the Volscians to a surrender.

In fact the fear of Negro replicas -- which may be blond and blue-eyed -- has depopulated whole regions.

If such were not the bann, the vendettas would soon accumulate to such degree that all Caledonia would be depopulated.

After severe struggles General Cameron succeeded in subduing the Waikato district, but empty and depopulated, for the Maories escaped in all directions.

Canterbury once more depopulated of the clergy and their retainers, Arthur had designated Yorkminster to henceforth be the paramount archdiocese of his realm and had empowered Harold to fill all vacant sees.

The captive barbarians, exchanging death for slavery, were distributed among the provincials, and assigned to those districts (in Gaul, the territories of Amiens, Beauvais, Cambray, Treves, Langres, and Troyes, are particularly specified ^37) which had been depopulated by the calamities of war.

At length the Barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and afflicted by the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced, fixed their permanent seats in the depopulated country.

But the hopes of fortune depopulated the mountains, luxury enervated the hardiness of their minds and bodies, and in proportion as they mixed with mankind, they became less qualified for the enjoyment of poor and solitary freedom.

The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his successors, ^88 first appeared in the neighborhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile.

In this pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople, exterminated sixty-five thousand of his fellow-Christians, till he obtained the recall of the bishops, the satisfaction of the pope, and the establishment of the council of Chalcedon, an orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, and more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian.

At the second aera, these once flourishing provinces were clouded with ignorance impoverished by tyranny, and depopulated by Barbarian war nor can we severely accuse the exaggeration of a contemporary, that a fair and ample district was reduced to the same desolation which had covered the earth after the general deluge.