The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.
Wiktionary
vb. (en-past of: depopulate)
WordNet
adj. having lost inhabitants as by war or disease; "the 15th century plagues left vast areas of Europe depopulated"
Usage examples of "depopulated".
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.
But the rigid execution of these laws would have depopulated the palace, the camp, and the city.
The whole country north of the Danube was lost in a day, and depopulated in a summer.
Beyond the grass at the other side of the park was the boarder to the Lesser Depopulated Zone.
Then the train emerged on the outskirts of the Depopulated Zone, raising up to race across the open valley on a concrete trestle.
This was an area zoned for leveling --- the edge of the Depopulated Zone.
This was a different area of the Depopulated Zone than Savina was used to --- the ruins she had explored with Greg were far south of here, an area that had once been the center of a city before all the cities had merged.
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.