population — English Dictionary

Noun

1. The people living within a political or geographical boundary.

   Examples

   The population of New Jersey will not stand for this!

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   “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)[…]

2. The people with a given characteristic.

   Usage

   • broadly

   Examples

   India has the third-largest population of English-speakers in the world.

3. A count of the number of residents within a political or geographical boundary such as a town, a nation or the world.

   Examples

   The town’s population is only 243.

   population explosion; population growth

4. 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

   This is one of several known "sawtooth" patterns, in which the population is unbounded but does not tend to infinity.

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   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.

   End population was 101,764 cells, but with some significant spikes and drops along the way.

5. A collection of organisms of a particular species, sharing a particular characteristic of interest, most often that of living in a given area.

   Examples

   A seasonal migration annually changes the populations in two or more biotopes drastically, many twice in opposite senses.

   Within and among populations of grindelias, some morphologic traits appear to vary more from plant to plant than in most genera of composites.

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   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.

   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.

6. A group of units (persons, objects, or other items) enumerated in a census or from which a sample is drawn.

   Examples

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   […]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.

7. The act of filling initially empty items in a collection.

   Examples

   John clicked the Search button and waited for the population of the list to complete.

8. General population.

   Examples

   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.

Noun

1. the people who inhabit a territory or state

   Broader terms

   people

   Examples

   the population seemed to be well fed and clothed

2. a group of organisms of the same species inhabiting a given area

   Broader terms

   groupgrouping

   Examples

   they hired hunters to keep down the deer population

3. (statistics) the entire aggregation of items from which samples can be drawn

   Synonyms

   universe

   Broader terms

   collectionaggregationaccumulationassemblage

   Examples

   it is an estimate of the mean of the population

4. the number of inhabitants (either the total number or the number of a particular race or class) in a given place (country or city etc.)

   Broader terms

   integerwhole number

   Examples

   people come and go, but the population of this town has remained approximately constant for the past decade

   the African-American population of Salt Lake City has been increasing

5. the act of populating (causing to live in a place)

   Broader terms

   colonizationcolonisationsettlement

   Examples

   he deplored the population of colonies with convicted criminals