n. 1 a the inhabitants of a place, country, etc. referred to collectively. b any specified group within this (the Irish population of Liverpool). 2 the total number of any of these (a population of eight million; the seal population). 3 the act or process of supplying with inhabitants (the population of forest areas). 4 Statistics any finite or infinite collection of items under consideration. population explosion a sudden large increase of population.
[ LL populatio (as PEOPLE) ]