population
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌpɒp.jʊˈleɪ.ʃən/
ipa: /ˌpɒp.juːˈleɪ.ʃən/
ipa: /ˌpɑ.pjəˈleɪ.ʃən/
rhymes: -eɪʃən
Forms: form: populations
Etymology: Borrowed from Late Latin populatio (“a people, multitude”), as if a noun of action from Classical Latin populus, equivalent to populate + -ion. Doublet of poblacion.
Senses: examples: text: The population of New Jersey will not stand for this!
text: “Panicology” considers the evidence on both sides of a large number of worries that have beset the industrialized world in modern times, including the “population crisis” (now one of underpopulation that threatens the wealth and health of aging populations in countries like Italy and Russia)[…]
ref: 2009 May 19, Jane E. Brody, “The Slippery Slope From Fear to Panic”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 08 Jun 2012:
glosses: The people living within a political or geographical boundary.
examples: text: India has the third-largest population of English-speakers in the world.
glosses: The people with a given characteristic.
examples: text: The town’s population is only 243.
text: population explosion; population growth
glosses: A count of the number of residents within a political or geographical boundary such as a town, a nation or the world.
examples: text: This is one of several known "sawtooth" patterns, in which the population is unbounded but does not tend to infinity.
ref: 1996 December 16, Dean Hickerson, “What is his name ?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):
text: Since unoccupied cells never send a message they never access their neighbors and so if the population of the arena is, say, 20% of the total area then 80% of time no neighbor cells need to be accessed at all leading 1/9th as many array accesses and computation speeds up to 9 times faster per generation.
ref: 2003 February 28, fiziwig, “Fast GOL alogrithm that doesn't examine neighbors.”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):
text: End population was 101,764 cells, but with some significant spikes and drops along the way.
ref: 2008 May 31, Dave Greene, “Life: B37/S23 - A Chaotic Universe.”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):
topics: cellular-automata
computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A count of the number of residents within a political or geographical boundary such as a town, a nation or the world.
The number of living cells in a pattern.
examples: text: A seasonal migration annually changes the populations in two or more biotopes drastically, many twice in opposite senses.
text: Within and among populations of grindelias, some morphologic traits appear to vary more from plant to plant than in most genera of composites.
ref: 2006, Flora of North America, North of Mexico:
text: Plant breeding is always a numbers game.[…]The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, […]. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better. These rarities may be new mutations, or they can be existing ones that are neutral—or are even selected against—in a wild population. A good example is mutations that disrupt seed dispersal, leaving the seeds on the heads long after they are ripe.
ref: 2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3:
text: The tunnel was retired from operational service on September 3 1966. Since then, like many other tunnels, it has been left unused and unloved, apart from by the resident bat population.
ref: 2023 November 29, Peter Plisner, “The winds of change in Catesby Tunnel”, in RAIL, number 997, page 56:
topics: biology
natural-sciences
glosses: A collection of organisms of a particular species, sharing a particular characteristic of interest, most often that of living in a given area.
examples: text: […]it is possible it [the Anglo-Saxon race] might stand second to the Scandinavian countries [in average height] if a fair sample of their population were obtained.
ref: 1883, Francis Galton et al., “Final Report of the Anthropometric Committee”, in Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, page 269:
topics: mathematics
sciences
statistics
glosses: A group of units (persons, objects, or other items) enumerated in a census or from which a sample is drawn.
examples: text: John clicked the Search button and waited for the population of the list to complete.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: The act of filling initially empty items in a collection.
examples: text: I would like to say something about the place I am doing time at. When I was placed in population, I met another woman and we immediately became good friends.
ref: 1985 April 6, Jackie Beattie, “More Power To Us All”, in Gay Community News, page 4:
qualifier: prison
glosses: General population.
Derived terms: word: populational
word: populationally
word: populationism
word: populationless
word: stellar population
sense: Compound words
word: antipopulationist
sense: Compound words
word: autopopulation
sense: Compound words
word: coenopopulation
sense: Compound words
word: depopulation
sense: Compound words
word: hemipopulation
sense: Compound words
word: heteropopulation
sense: Compound words
word: infrapopulation
sense: Compound words
word: interpopulation
sense: Compound words
word: interpopulational
sense: Compound words
word: intrapopulation
sense: Compound words
word: intrapopulational
sense: Compound words
word: megapopulation
sense: Compound words
word: metapopulation
sense: Compound words
word: micropopulation
sense: Compound words
word: morphopopulation
sense: Compound words
word: multipopulation
sense: Compound words
word: multipopulational
sense: Compound words
word: overpopulation
sense: Compound words
word: paleopopulation
sense: Compound words
word: population dynamics
sense: Compound words
word: pseudopopulation
sense: Compound words
word: repopulation
sense: Compound words
word: subpopulation
sense: Compound words
word: superpopulation
sense: Compound words
word: suprapopulation
sense: Compound words
word: transpopulation
sense: Compound words
word: underpopulation
sense: Expressions
word: general population
sense: Expressions
word: ghost population
sense: Expressions
word: population biologist
sense: Expressions
word: population biology
sense: Expressions
word: population bomb
sense: Expressions
word: population bottleneck
sense: Expressions
word: population density
sense: Expressions
word: population genetics
sense: Expressions
word: Population I
sense: Expressions
word: Population II
sense: Expressions
word: Population III
sense: Expressions
word: population inversion
sense: Expressions
word: population mean
sense: Expressions
word: population pyramid
sense: Expressions
word: zero population growth
Related terms: popular
populate
populous