as in to inhabit
to supply with inhabitants
a small island populated only by woodland creatures
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of populate
Venice-premiering Israeli-Iranian sports drama Tatami, part two of a Norwegian trilogy and a doc on Simple Minds launched during the group’s North American tour populate a lively specialty box office.
—
Jill Goldsmith, Deadline, 13 June 2025
Careful excavation work over the years that has involved sifting for bones, extracting ancient DNA, and looking for prehistoric pollen has revealed not just the plants and animals that once populated this part of the world, but also the ecosystems and climates that governed it.
—Ari Daniel, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 June 2025
Gone were the waves, the sunshine and the blond-haired girls that populated his earlier work.
—Steve Marble, Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2025
The former work is dishwasher-sized and features a blue sky above an autumnal landscape populated by George Washington, school children, and some deer.
—Literary Hub, 4 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for populate
Jill Goldsmith, Deadline, 13 June 2025
Careful excavation work over the years that has involved sifting for bones, extracting ancient DNA, and looking for prehistoric pollen has revealed not just the plants and animals that once populated this part of the world, but also the ecosystems and climates that governed it.
—Ari Daniel, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 June 2025
Gone were the waves, the sunshine and the blond-haired girls that populated his earlier work.
—Steve Marble, Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2025
The former work is dishwasher-sized and features a blue sky above an autumnal landscape populated by George Washington, school children, and some deer.
—Literary Hub, 4 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for populate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for populate
Verb
-
Lima, home to 10 million people, has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years.—
Andrea Margolis,
FOXNews.com,
28 June 2025
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The area is still inhabited by the Wampanoag tribe and that is the setting for the scene where Hooper, Brody and Mayor Vaughn have a showdown about warning people about the menacing great white shark.—
Rosemary Feitelberg,
Footwear News,
27 June 2025
Verb
-
Sure, your team is still peopled with the same flawed human beings, still maddeningly inconsistent and impossible to predict.—
Vinson Cunningham,
New Yorker,
2 June 2025
-
Louis is the kind of polarizing character who people either really loved or loved to hate.—
Max Gao,
HollywoodReporter,
3 Sep. 2019
Cite this Entry
“Populate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/populate. Accessed 1 Jul. 2025.
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