populationn.¹

Brit.

/ˌpɒpjᵿˈleɪʃn/, U.S.

/ˌpɑpjəˈleɪʃ(ə)n/

Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymons: Latin population-, populatio.

Etymology: < post-classical Latin population-, populatio population, multitude (5th cent.), colonization, settlement (11th cent.), rural settlement (13th cent.), populousness (13th cent. in a British source) < populat- , past participial stem of populare populate v.² + classical Latin -iō -ion suffix¹. Compare Middle French, French population (1335 in uncertain sense in Middle French as populacion ) collective inhabitants of a town or country (late 14th cent. in an apparently isolated attestation, subsequently from 1755; in later use after English), action or process of populating a place or region (1682; now obsolete in this sense), animals inhabiting or plants growing in a place collectively (second half of the 19th cent. or earlier), Catalan població (1272, earliest in sense 3), Spanish población inhabited place, village (mid 11th cent.; compare post-classical Latin populacion- , populacio , frequently in this sense in Spanish sources from 11th cent.), action of populating (1495; also (rare) populación ), Italian popolazione nation, people (a1527), inhabitants collectively (1618). With sense 3 compare earlier populating n., peopling n.

I. General uses.

†1. A populated or inhabited place. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > [noun]

stead1297

tower and townc1330

wonec1330

seat and soila1400

inhabitationc1400

populationa1544

a1544 R. Barlow tr. M. Fernández de Enciso Brief Summe Geogr. (1932) 107 In this londe be many palmares and good populations [Sp. lugares].

1578 T. Nicholas tr. F. Lopez de Gómara Pleasant Hist. Conquest W. India 130 They received their advise that neere at hand were great populations [Sp. poblaciones], and soone after he came to Zimpanzinco.

1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage 479 It hath in it, by estimation, threescore thousand Populations, or inhabited places.

a. The extent to which a place is populated or inhabited; the collective inhabitants of a country, town, or other area; a body of inhabitants.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > population > [noun]

erd-folka1325

furniture1526

inhabitation1588

population1612

peopling1622

stock1668

populace1687

habitancya1859

tenantrya1871

the world > relative properties > wholeness > the whole or all > [noun] > the whole quantity, number, or amount

fullOE

suma1382

universitya1382

your university1385

wholea1393

amountment?a1400

wholenessa1425

hale1437

aggregatec1443

rate1472

total1557

the whole ware1563

lump1576

gross1579

totality1598

universarya1604

general1608

population1612

amount1615

totum1656

totea1772

complete1790

factorial1869

collectivity1882

1612 F. Bacon Ess. (new ed.) 237 Not the hundreth [printed hnndreth] pole will be fit for a helmet, and so great population and little strength.

1625 F. Bacon Ess. (new ed.) xv. 83 It is to be foreseene, that the Population of a Kingdome, (especially if it be not mowen downe by warrs) doe not exceed, the Stock of the Kingdome, which should maintaine them.

1770 O. Goldsmith Deserted Village 125 But now the sounds of population fail.

1798 T. R. Malthus Ess. Princ. Population i. 14 Population..increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.

1803 T. R. Malthus Ess. Princ. Population (new ed.) i. vii. 100 The population of the tribe is measured by the population of its herds.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. iii. 281 The population of England in 1685 cannot be ascertained with perfect accuracy.

1868 J. E. T. Rogers Man. Polit. Econ. xii. 153 To make increased population the cause of improved agriculture, is to commit the absurd blunder of confounding cause and effect.

1902 A. S. Tompkins Hist. Rec. Rock Co., N.Y. 46 There is but little data to estimate Indian populations.

1927 E. V. Gordon Introd. Old Norse p. xxi The population of the kingdom of the Rus was..mainly Slavonic.

1988 Hamilton (Ont.) Spectator 19 Apr. b8/1 The rest of the population of 6 million or so is starving.

b. In extended use (chiefly applied to animals).

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > biology > balance of nature > population > [noun]

increase1559

standing crop1683

populace1742

population1803

abundance1898

biota1901

1803 T. R. Malthus Ess. Princ. Population (new ed.) i. vii. 100 The population of the tribe is measured by the population of its herds.

1885 J. Ball in Jrnl. Linn. Soc. 21 207 A gradual increase in the vegetable population would come about.

1897 M. Kingsley Trav. W. Afr. 76 Its resident population consists of sharks, whose annual toll of human life is said by some authorities to be fourteen.

1956 A. H. Compton Atomic Quest ii. 89 If the neutron population is increasing generation after generation, the reaction grows in intensity.

1968 Brit. Med. Bull. 24 244/1 Much study has therefore gone into the effect of radiation on proliferating cell populations in various environments.

1994 N.Y. Times 27 Sept. c14/3 Two islands near Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula, Torgerson and Litchfield, both have large populations of Adélie penguins.

†c. The working class. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > the common people > specific classes of common people > [noun] > working class

working class1757

population1817

proletaire1833

proletariat1847

labour class1848

industrial proletariat1871

1817 W. Cobbett Taking Leave 7 We now frequently hear the working classes called ‘the population’, just as we call the animals upon a farm ‘the stock’.

d. A group of people, esp. regarded as a class or subset within a larger group. Frequently with modifying word.

ΚΠ

1818 Times 13 Aug. 2/5 Providence..has placed them in a situation so much to be preferred to that of the great bulk of the working population of these kingdoms.

1910 Polit. Sci. Q. 25 366 During the fiscal year the immigrant population increased by 500,000; over a quarter of a million immigrants returned home.

1978 R. Mitchison Life in Scotl. vi. 108 The arrival [in cities] of large populations with low standards of cleanliness.

2001 N.Y. Times 12 July c6/5 An I.B.M. spokesman said the job cuts were the result of a routine skills evaluation... ‘The most significant fact is that we expect our employee population to be higher this year.’

e. U.S. slang. The general body of inmates in a prison, rehabilitation centre, etc. (as opposed to those in special or restricted categories or units). Frequently in in population.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > inhabitant by type of accommodation > [noun] > inmate of institution > collectively

population1950

1950 H. E. Goldin Dict. Amer. Underworld Lingo 162/2 Population,..the general body of inmates as differentiated from convicts in trusty jobs, hospital patients, and occupants of punishment or psychopathic observation wings.

1956 J. Resko Reprieve (1959) iii. xvi. 135 Our friends out in population took care of us.

1973 Philadelphia Inquirer 7 Oct. (Today Suppl.) 50/3 Sprague tried to block Soleni's move into general population.

1990 J. Welch Indian Lawyer 9 Once you got labeled you might as well serve the rest of your shift in PC, because somebody in population would get you.

3. The action or process of populating a place or region; the increasing in number of inhabitants.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > furnishing with inhabitants > [noun]

peopling1611

populating1652

population1776

1776 Declar. Independence U.S.A. 4 July (single sheet) He [sc. the king] has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States.

1796 J. Morse Amer. Universal Geogr. (new ed.) I. 563 The population of the province was extremely rapid.

1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits x. 164 Population is stimulated, and cities rise.

1869 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest III. xii. 232 [Polygamy] could..be hardly looked on as on the whole conducive to population.

1925 W. H. Tillinghast tr. K. J. Ploetz Man. Universal Hist. 555 The discovery of gold in California (1848) had led to the rapid population of that territory, and in 1850 it became the 31st state.

2002 Lincolnshire Echo (Nexis) 10 Dec. 30 It was the overcrowding of the city and the opportunity for unlimited expansion in the wide open rural spaces south of Lincoln, that led to the industrialisation and rapid population of the area.

II. Technical uses.

4. Statistics. A (real or hypothetical) totality of objects or individuals under consideration, of which the statistical attributes may be estimated by the study of a sample or samples drawn from it.

ΘΚΠ

the world > relative properties > number > probability or statistics > [noun] > population

population1877

1877 F. Galton in Nature 12 Apr. 513/2 The number of pellets in each compartment represents the relative number in a population of seeds, whose weight deviates from the average, within the limits expressed by the distances of the sides of that compartment from the middle point.

1903 Biometrika 2 273 If the whole of a population were taken we should have certain values for its statistical constants, but in actual practice we are only able to take a sample.

1922 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) A. 222 329 It is unfortunate that in this memoir no sufficient distinction is drawn between the population and the sample.

1977 Accountants Weekly 29 July 17/1 The tests built into the program ensured that sample data extracted for audit checks came from a complete population, a fundamental requirement in auditing.

2002 S. G. Charlton in S. G. Charlton & T. G. O'Brien Handbk. Human Factors Testing & Eval. (ed. 2) x. 227 Based on a desired sampling error of 10% at 80% confidence, and for a generic population size of 1,000, the recommended sample size is 40 or more.

5. Genetics. A group of animals, plants, or humans, within which breeding occurs.

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > biology > biological processes > genetic activity > heredity or hereditary descent > [noun] > breeding group

population1889

1889 F. Galton Nat. Inheritance iv. 35 The science of heredity is concerned with Fraternities and large Populations rather than with individuals, and must treat them as units.

1949 C. Stern Princ. Human Genetics 594 The genic constitution of the later populations will obviously depend on the genotypes of their second-generation ancestors.

1966 R. Ardrey Territorial Imperative iv. 138 A population, in biology, is a reproductive community. More sharply stated, it is any group of individuals who have a modest probability, within any generation, of meeting and mating.

1972 Sci. Amer. Jan. 100/3 He maintained four populations of Drosophila in the laboratory over a 48-month period.

2004 S. J. Suomi in C. G. Coll Nature & Nurture ii. 41 These monkeys, comprising approximately 5 to 10% of the population, seem unusually impulsive, insensitive, and overly aggressive in their interactions with other troop members.

6. Physics. The (number of) atoms or subatomic particles that occupy any particular energy state.

ΘΚΠ

the world > matter > physics > atomic physics > particle physics > [noun] > a particle > number occupying energy state

population1928

the world > matter > physics > atomic physics > [noun] > particles occupying energy state

population1971

1928 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 14 785 There is an intensity disymmetry favoring the P branch which has nothing to do with the distribution of population among the different rotational levels.

1938 R. W. Lawson tr. G. von Hevesy & F. A. Paneth Man. Radioactivity (ed. 2) viii. 88 The resulting gap in the atom, due to the incomplete population of the K-shell, may now be filled by the transition of an electron from the L-level into the K-level.

1971 Sci. Amer. June 22/1 By elevating more atoms to an upper energy level than exist at a lower level the absorption of excitation radiation produces an ‘inverted’ atomic population in the laser.

2002 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99 11581/1 At room temperature, these are the only such localized states to have significant population.

7. Astronomy. Any of several groups, originally two in number, into which stars and other celestial objects are categorized on the basis of where in the galaxy they were formed. Chiefly in population I n., population II n., population III n. at Compounds 2.The original two groups, I and II, were subsequently subdivided (into Ia, Ib, IIa, IIb, etc.), and a putative third group added (population III).

ΘΚΠ

the world > the universe > constellation > star-cluster > [noun] > population

population1951

1944 W. Baade in Astrophysical Jrnl. 100 137 The stellar populations of the galaxies fall into two distinct groups, one represented by the..stars in our solar neighborhood (the slow-moving stars), the other by that of the globular clusters. Characteristic of the first group (type I) are highly luminous O- and B-type stars and open clusters; of the second (type II), short-period Cepheids and globular clusters.]

1951 Astrophysical Jrnl. 113 413 Highly luminous stars of population I.

1965 A. Blaauw in A. Blaauw & M. Schmidt Galactic Structure xx. 442 The intermediary type ‘disk population’ was added to the types I and II, and these were then subdivided into five categories representing a more or less continuous series of properties, ranging from ‘halo population II’ to extreme population I.

1992 S. P. Maran Astron. & Astrophysics Encycl. 201/2 About 20% of the globular clusters in our Galaxy are less metal poor and are found within about 1 or 2 kpc of the galactic plane..and thus belong to intermediate Population II, often called the thick-disk population.

2003 J. Scalzi Rough Guide to Universe xiii. 186 Astronomers have divided galactic star populations into two large categories: Population I stars, which are young, and Population II stars, which are rather older.

Compounds

C1.

population basis n.

ΚΠ

1844 Times 17 Oct. 4/3 Whether household suffrage, or the population basis, or the limit of 300 members, should or should not be adopted on the same contingency.

1903 Westm. Gaz. 31 Oct. 10/2 Australia,..on a population basis, is undoubtedly one of the largest consumers of books in the world.

1987 C. Reid Tea in China Cup ii, in Plays: One (1997) 40 Low-grade positions in the Northern Ireland Civil Service are allocated on a strict population basis.

population census n.

ΚΠ

1831 Times 15 July 4/3 His Majesty's ministers had thought it better to take as a rule the population census of 1821.

1968 Internat. Encycl. Social Sci. XII. 369/1 In most advanced countries illiteracy has been almost eliminated, and therefore questions on literacy are no longer included in population censuses.

1991 Atom Jan. 7/2 The definitive study by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) into cancer near nuclear establishments.

population control n.

ΚΠ

1908 Econ. Jrnl. 18 578 At other points Dr. Tenney is more truly inductive; and his essay as a whole is very helpful to a scientific view of the problem of population control.

1959 New Statesman 21 Mar. 401/1 Countries like India and Japan have made population-control a central feature in national policy, because they know that without it they are headed for disaster.

1996 R. Mistry Fine Balance (1997) vii. 315 It's..a service to the nation—small families are happy families, population control is most important.

population cycle n.

ΚΠ

1922 Rev. Econ. Stud. 4 245/1 Thus the limiting principle was the population cycle, the regulating principle was the business cycle.

1969 N. W. Pirie Food Resources ii. 70 A few plant and animal species..go through fairly regular population cycles.

1991 Nature Canada Fall 55/2 It's believed this behavior may account for population cycles in the cervids.

population distribution n.

ΚΠ

1909 Science 2 July 21/1 He has shown no ratio over the expected for the rural regions in terms of population distribution.

2004 Washington Post (Nexis) 11 Nov. To ask our children..to change schools at the beginning or in the middle of their elementary school years just to even out the population distribution in North Arlington schools seems downright mean.

population drift n.

ΚΠ

1883 Butte (Montana) Daily Miner 29 Aug. 2/1 The fact is nearly all our foreign and a large portion of our native population drift to the larger cities.]

1925 Bismarck (N. Dakota) Tribune 3 Mar. Continued population drift from farms to cities.

1931 Jrnl. Polit. Econ. 39 801 Few of these people ever return to the farm permanently, for the population drift has been continually to urban centers.

2004 Hull Daily Mail (Nexis) 19 May 17 Planning consultant Adrian James said completing Kingswood would help stem the population drift from Hull to the neighbouring East Riding.

population growth n.

ΚΠ

1867 S. Osgood N.Y. in 19th Cent. 77 Even London has less than half the average rate of population growth which New York has.

1924 Amer. Mercury Nov. 293/1 Books and articles dwelling upon the awful consequences or the potential blessings of population growth.

1994 New Scientist 23 Apr. 5/3 Calls by rich countries to limit population growth in poor countries were seen by many Third World governments as racist or politically motivated.

population increase n.

ΚΠ

1851 Jrnl. Statist. Soc. 14 307 The births increased during the second decennial period, from 1824 to 1833, 13.6 per cent., which corresponds with the population increase of 12.5 per cent.

1930 R. A. Fisher Genetical Theory Nat. Selection ii. 26 The Malthusian parameter of population increase.

1994 Afr. Environment & Wildlife Nov. 78/3 With a natural population increase of some five per cent a year, in the region of 4–500 animals have to be ‘taken off’ each year.

† population-monger n. Obsolete rare

ΚΠ

1826 W. Cobbett Rural Rides in Cobbett's Weekly Polit. Reg. 28 Oct. 288 The Scotch population-mongers and Malthus and his crew.

population planning n.

ΚΠ

1934 Helena (Montana) Independent 28 Dec. 1/2 Prof. Carver, a visiting faculty member at the University of California at Los Angeles, urged population planning as the solution of occupational congestion.

1974 Times 21 Jan. 6/2 The idea of population planning antagonized many countries.

2003 Courier Mail (Queensland) (Nexis) 9 Dec. 5 Without population planning, southeast Queensland..would suffer significant environmental and economic problems.

population policy n.

ΚΠ

1908 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 14 106 When such a civilized economic policy shall be accompanied by a corresponding population policy.

1944 J. S. Huxley On Living in Revol. xii. 131 It is very important that there should be a well-thought-out population policy for backward areas.

1992 Philadelphia Inquirer 22 Aug. a9/1 What was the President doing? Appointing pro-life judges, promoting gag rules and turning back the clock on population policies.

population pressure n.

ΚΠ

1849 Times 8 Jan. 4/2 From this admission it would result that the population pressure on the resources of the unions will be a continuing pressure of 857,128.

1931 J. S. Huxley What dare I Think? v. 165 Causing more babies to live and so creating greater population-pressure.

1995 Independent 20 May 6/1 A revolution in consumer lifestyles, emphasising frugality and ‘post-materialism’ and triggered by world population pressures,..will mark the opening decades of the 21st century.

population question n.

ΚΠ

1851 S. Colwell New Themes for Protestant Clergy 293 (heading) The population question and its discussions.

1911 G. B. Shaw Getting Married Pref. in Doctor's Dilemma 116 St. Paul's reluctant sanction of marriage;..his contemptuous ‘better to marry than to burn’ is only out of date in respect of his belief that the end of the world was at hand and that there was therefore no longer any population question.

2002 New Yorker 13 May 41/1 At one time I thought that the population question was the alpha and omega of the problem.

population return n.

ΚΠ

1801 Times 6 Mar. 1/1 Population returns. Tuesday next being the day appointed by the Act of Parliament lately passed for taking an Account of the Population.

1845 B. Disraeli Sybil ii. xvi. 313 The Population Returns of this country are very instructive reading.

2003 Lincolnshire Echo (Nexis) 25 Mar. 33 This shows up in the population returns with only 34 people living in Oxcombe all of whom would most likely have had an employment link to the Briggs estate.

population survey n.

ΚΠ

1919 Sandusky (Ohio) Reg. 13 Aug. 10/4 On the eve of the taking of the 1920 census, a population survey of cities of 25,000 or over has been made by the Newspaper Feature Bureau.

1953 Brit. Commonw. Forest Terminol.: Pt. I (Empire Forestry Assoc.) 14 Attractant, a substance attractive to insects, rodents, etc., used in population surveys or in control traps or baits.

1994 New Scientist 24 Dec. 10/1 This figure was calculated from a population survey carried out in 1991 using the ‘line transect’ method.

population theory n.

ΚΠ

1848 Spectator 29 Apr. 421/2 The population theory of Malthus stands or falls with the theory of Ricardo.

1966 Economist 17 Dec. 1253/3 Except in the matter of population theory, where he anticipated and influenced Malthus, Steuart had little or no effect on later economic thought in Britain.

2000 Independent 4 July (Tuesday Review section) 9/4 We had big battles about content. One was on Malthusian population theory [which Jay was keen to include].

population trend n.

ΚΠ

1920 Amer. Econ. Rev. 10 80 It should be able to forsee or control the inventions, the discoveries, the weather cycles, the population trends, and the wars of the next half century, at least.

1933 W. S. Thompson & P. K. Whelpton (title) Population trends in the United States.

1995 New Scientist 4 Mar. 50/2 The winter population trend for the red-breasted goose looks very encouraging,..this is probably due to a shift to wintering grounds from the Caspian to the Black Sea.

C2.

population biologist n. an expert or specialist in population biology.

ΚΠ

1939 Amer. Midland Naturalist 21 238 The foregoing remarks have dealt somewhat briefly with the points of attack and methods in present use by the population biologists.

1992 New Scientist 11 July 13/1 A British population biologist..who represents the World Conservation Union..at the IWC.

population biology n. the branch of biology that deals with the patterns and causes of diversity within and among populations, esp. as regards their ecology, demography, epidemiology, etc.

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > biology > study > [noun] > genetics > branches of

eugenics1883

thremmatology1888

negative eugenics1908

phenogenetics1928

cytogenetics1930

genetic engineering1934

radiogenetics1934

population biology1935

population genetics1938

immunogenetics1947

gengineering1985

archaeogenetics1999

1935 Man 35 109/1 The sections include..population biology and race hygiene.

1979 Nature 9 Aug. 455 (heading) Population biology of infectious diseases.

1995 New Scientist 25 Mar. 7/3 John Beddington, professor of population biology at Imperial College, London, says that if fishing continues at today's levels, marine ecosystems will be radically altered.

population centre n. a densely populated urban area; the area of a particular country, region, etc., which is most densely populated.

ΚΠ

1867 Times 27 Aug. 7/4 Every great population centre contains several thousands such provident, industrious, deserving men.

1922 F. H. Dixon Railroads & Govt. x. 140 Routing was also worked out to take advantage of ruling grades and to avoid congested population centres.

1993 D. Lamb Sense of Place 23 The population center of the United States... Today it's at Steelville, Missouri..and the density is seventy people per square mile (and 9,883 in Washington, D. C., the nation's ‘murder capital’).

population curve n. a graph showing the variation of population with time.

ΘΚΠ

the world > people > science of mankind > [noun] > study of populations > graph showing variation in population

population curve1875

the world > relative properties > number > probability or statistics > [noun] > graph > relating to population

population curve1875

population pyramid1927

survivorship curve1953

1875 H. W. Watson & F. Galton in Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 4 142 The population curve will, in this case, be a straight line parallel to Ox.

1935 Proc. Prehistoric Soc. 1 11 Advances of critical importance to humanity should be followed by such a multiplication as to be conspicuously reflected in the population curve.

1991 J. Pardoe How Many Times can you say Goodbye? (BNC) 87 In the Western world there is an older and ageing population that is radically altering the shape of the population curve.

population explosion n. a rapid or sudden marked increase in the size of a population.

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > source or principle of life > birth > confinement > [noun] > childbirth or delivery > population explosion

baby boom1879

bulge1930

population explosion1946

baby boomlet1963

echo boom1975

1946 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 22 Dec. 4/5 One is what he [sc. Eugene Staley of the Institute of Pacific Relations] calls the danger of a ‘population explosion’. He is not talking the old ‘yellow peril’ phobia of 40 years ago. He is talking about keeping birth and death rates fairly close together.

1990 E. Harth Dawn of Millennium (1991) 4 The triple threats of population explosion, environmental decay, and annihilation by nuclear conflict.

population-explosive adj. that causes a population explosion.

ΚΠ

1967 Punch 3 May 637/3 This two-way flow, once started, would never stop; no government, much less any shipping company, could ever stop such a flow, population-explosive, travel-agency-prodded and democratic.

population geneticist n. an expert or specialist in population genetics.

ΚΠ

1948 Evolution 2 95/2 This view, so acceptable a priori to the population-geneticist and so difficult, apparently, for the traditional ecologist.

1977 Nature 6 Jan. 26/2 The basic interests of the population geneticist of course lie in the realm of population dynamics, and the knowledge of allele frequencies is an essential prerequisite to further work.

1990 J. Bishop & M. Waldholz Genome ii. 51 Population geneticists study families to see if a particular trait..is being passed from one generation to another in the pattern dictated by Mendel's laws of inheritance.

population genetics n. the branch of genetics that deals mathematically with the distribution of and change in gene frequencies in populations from one generation to another.

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > biology > study > [noun] > genetics > branches of

eugenics1883

thremmatology1888

negative eugenics1908

phenogenetics1928

cytogenetics1930

genetic engineering1934

radiogenetics1934

population biology1935

population genetics1938

immunogenetics1947

gengineering1985

archaeogenetics1999

1938 Science 2 Dec. 9/2 (advt.) Much new material has been added on salivary gland chromosomes, cytoplasmic inheritance, population genetics, inbreeding, heterosis.

1984 M. J. Taussig Processes in Pathol. & Microbiol. (ed. 2) vii. 834 The relationship between gene frequencies and affected or carrier individuals is given by the Hardy–Weinberg law, a rule of fundamental importance in population genetics.

1995 Sci. News 25 Nov. 366/3 Early support for cultural group selection came from studies inspired by population genetics.

population inversion n. Physics a transposition of the relative numbers of atoms or molecules occupying certain energy levels (normally with more particles in a higher state than in a lower one, as in a laser).

ΘΚΠ

the world > matter > physics > atomic physics > [noun] > particles occupying energy state > transposition of number of

optical pumping1952

population inversion1961

inversion1963

1961 Physical Rev. Lett. 6 106/1 Population inversions are achieved between several Ne levels by means of excitation transfer.

1995 Sci. Amer. Feb. 52 Masers and lasers arise from a condition known as population inversion, in which the number of atoms or molecules in a higher-energy state exceeds that in a lower-energy state—the reverse of the normal state of affairs.

population I n. Astronomy a population of relatively young, metal-rich, highly luminous stars believed to have formed from the debris of other stars, together with other young celestial objects located in the galactic disc.

ΚΠ

1951 Astrophysical Jrnl. 113 413 Highly luminous stars of population I.

1975 L. Gratton in G. Setti Struct. & Evol. Galaxies 30 Apparently, during a time as short as a few times 10⁸ years all the halo population II stars have been formed and since then only population I stars have been born.

1992 S. P. Maran Astron. & Astrophysics Encycl. 729/2 A subgroup of the δ Scuti variables may be astrophysically different from the normal Population I δ Scuti variables: the SX Phe stars (Population II).

population pyramid n. a roughly triangular figure on a level base, the width of which at any height indicates the numbers having an age proportional to that height; a population distribution.

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > biology > laboratory analysis > measure > [noun] > record or graph

plethysmogram1894

population pyramid1927

survival curve1936

Scatchard plot1958

zeugmatogram1973

the world > relative properties > number > probability or statistics > [noun] > graph > relating to population

population curve1875

population pyramid1927

survivorship curve1953

1927 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 32 873 The population pyramid of the Jews of western Europe as compared with the rest of the population shows a relatively small number of children and a much larger proportion of old people.

1976 Nature 1 July 19/1 As a result of their high crude birth rate..the population pyramid has a relatively broad base; 51·8% are less than 20 yr old and 28·7% are less than 10 yr old.

1991 P. M. Mather Computer Applic. in Geogr. 191 Figure 6.6(a) shows the population of Peru in 1983 in the form of a population pyramid.

population III n. Astronomy a hypothetical population of short-lived supermassive stars that may have existed before the period of galaxy formation, proposed in order to account for the observed metallicity of population II stars.

ΚΠ

1966 Science 18 Mar. 1418/3 Woolf noted that these first-generation ‘Population-III’ stars in our galaxy were probably large (10 solar masses) and short-lived (about 10⁷ yr).

1987 Nature 30 Apr. 829/1 A recent paper by Cayrel adds an interesting twist to speculation on the whereabouts of those most elusive of astronomical objects, Population III stars.

2003 Sci. Let. (Nexis) 17 Feb. 8 The theory of population III stars suggests they are long dead in the local Universe.

population II n. Astronomy a population of old, red stars formed early in the history of their parent galaxy, the earliest of which are thought to be coeval with their galaxy.

ΚΠ

1952 C. Payne-Gaposchkin Stars in Making iv. 74 The names ‘Populations I and II’ were originally given by Baade to the two groups of stars. As we shall see, they probably represent extremes rather than an absolute distinction.

1992 S. P. Maran Astron. & Astrophysics Encycl. 685/1 Approximately 50 variable stars in globular clusters are presently known to be Population II Cepheids.

1996 K. Croswell Alchemy of Heavens x. 122 Intermediate population II resembles the thick disk, and halo population II is the Galactic halo.

Derivatives

popuˈlationless adj. rare devoid of population; uninhabited.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > [adjective] > not

unbiggedc1175

desert1297

void1338

desolatec1374

unhabited1490

inhabitable?1529

disinhabit1530

depopulate1531

uninhabita1540

unpeopled1547

undwelta1557

uninhabited1571

dishabited1577

dispeopled1577

unhabit1580

disinhabited1600

desertful1601

unmanned1609

inhabited1614

peopleless1621

deserted1629

depopulated1632

unhabitated1648

unseated1662

desolated1693

unpopulous1715

unsettled1724

unpopulated1776

bandless1862

populationless1885

unlived-in1927

1885 A. J. C. Hare Stud. Russia ii. 76 Endless are the open spaces..almost populationless.

1948 Sociometry 11 17 A populationless situation; no people recorded in the data.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

单词	population
释义	populationn.¹ Brit. /ˌpɒpjᵿˈleɪʃn/, U.S. /ˌpɑpjəˈleɪʃ(ə)n/ Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymons: Latin population-, populatio. Etymology: < post-classical Latin population-, populatio population, multitude (5th cent.), colonization, settlement (11th cent.), rural settlement (13th cent.), populousness (13th cent. in a British source) < populat- , past participial stem of populare populate v.² + classical Latin -iō -ion suffix¹. Compare Middle French, French population (1335 in uncertain sense in Middle French as populacion ) collective inhabitants of a town or country (late 14th cent. in an apparently isolated attestation, subsequently from 1755; in later use after English), action or process of populating a place or region (1682; now obsolete in this sense), animals inhabiting or plants growing in a place collectively (second half of the 19th cent. or earlier), Catalan població (1272, earliest in sense 3), Spanish población inhabited place, village (mid 11th cent.; compare post-classical Latin populacion- , populacio , frequently in this sense in Spanish sources from 11th cent.), action of populating (1495; also (rare) populación ), Italian popolazione nation, people (a1527), inhabitants collectively (1618). With sense 3 compare earlier populating n., peopling n. I. General uses. †1. A populated or inhabited place. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > [noun] stead1297 tower and townc1330 wonec1330 seat and soila1400 inhabitationc1400 populationa1544 a1544 R. Barlow tr. M. Fernández de Enciso Brief Summe Geogr. (1932) 107 In this londe be many palmares and good populations [Sp. lugares]. 1578 T. Nicholas tr. F. Lopez de Gómara Pleasant Hist. Conquest W. India 130 They received their advise that neere at hand were great populations [Sp. poblaciones], and soone after he came to Zimpanzinco. 1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage 479 It hath in it, by estimation, threescore thousand Populations, or inhabited places. 2. a. The extent to which a place is populated or inhabited; the collective inhabitants of a country, town, or other area; a body of inhabitants. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > population > [noun] erd-folka1325 furniture1526 inhabitation1588 population1612 peopling1622 stock1668 populace1687 habitancya1859 tenantrya1871 the world > relative properties > wholeness > the whole or all > [noun] > the whole quantity, number, or amount fullOE suma1382 universitya1382 your university1385 wholea1393 amountment?a1400 wholenessa1425 hale1437 aggregatec1443 rate1472 total1557 the whole ware1563 lump1576 gross1579 totality1598 universarya1604 general1608 population1612 amount1615 totum1656 totea1772 complete1790 factorial1869 collectivity1882 1612 F. Bacon Ess. (new ed.) 237 Not the hundreth [printed hnndreth] pole will be fit for a helmet, and so great population and little strength. 1625 F. Bacon Ess. (new ed.) xv. 83 It is to be foreseene, that the Population of a Kingdome, (especially if it be not mowen downe by warrs) doe not exceed, the Stock of the Kingdome, which should maintaine them. 1770 O. Goldsmith Deserted Village 125 But now the sounds of population fail. 1798 T. R. Malthus Ess. Princ. Population i. 14 Population..increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. 1803 T. R. Malthus Ess. Princ. Population (new ed.) i. vii. 100 The population of the tribe is measured by the population of its herds. 1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. iii. 281 The population of England in 1685 cannot be ascertained with perfect accuracy. 1868 J. E. T. Rogers Man. Polit. Econ. xii. 153 To make increased population the cause of improved agriculture, is to commit the absurd blunder of confounding cause and effect. 1902 A. S. Tompkins Hist. Rec. Rock Co., N.Y. 46 There is but little data to estimate Indian populations. 1927 E. V. Gordon Introd. Old Norse p. xxi The population of the kingdom of the Rus was..mainly Slavonic. 1988 Hamilton (Ont.) Spectator 19 Apr. b8/1 The rest of the population of 6 million or so is starving. b. In extended use (chiefly applied to animals). ΘΚΠ the world > life > biology > balance of nature > population > [noun] increase1559 standing crop1683 populace1742 population1803 abundance1898 biota1901 1803 T. R. Malthus Ess. Princ. Population (new ed.) i. vii. 100 The population of the tribe is measured by the population of its herds. 1885 J. Ball in Jrnl. Linn. Soc. 21 207 A gradual increase in the vegetable population would come about. 1897 M. Kingsley Trav. W. Afr. 76 Its resident population consists of sharks, whose annual toll of human life is said by some authorities to be fourteen. 1956 A. H. Compton Atomic Quest ii. 89 If the neutron population is increasing generation after generation, the reaction grows in intensity. 1968 Brit. Med. Bull. 24 244/1 Much study has therefore gone into the effect of radiation on proliferating cell populations in various environments. 1994 N.Y. Times 27 Sept. c14/3 Two islands near Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula, Torgerson and Litchfield, both have large populations of Adélie penguins. †c. The working class. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > the common people > specific classes of common people > [noun] > working class working class1757 population1817 proletaire1833 proletariat1847 labour class1848 industrial proletariat1871 1817 W. Cobbett Taking Leave 7 We now frequently hear the working classes called ‘the population’, just as we call the animals upon a farm ‘the stock’. d. A group of people, esp. regarded as a class or subset within a larger group. Frequently with modifying word. ΚΠ 1818 Times 13 Aug. 2/5 Providence..has placed them in a situation so much to be preferred to that of the great bulk of the working population of these kingdoms. 1910 Polit. Sci. Q. 25 366 During the fiscal year the immigrant population increased by 500,000; over a quarter of a million immigrants returned home. 1978 R. Mitchison Life in Scotl. vi. 108 The arrival [in cities] of large populations with low standards of cleanliness. 2001 N.Y. Times 12 July c6/5 An I.B.M. spokesman said the job cuts were the result of a routine skills evaluation... ‘The most significant fact is that we expect our employee population to be higher this year.’ e. U.S. slang. The general body of inmates in a prison, rehabilitation centre, etc. (as opposed to those in special or restricted categories or units). Frequently in in population. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > inhabitant by type of accommodation > [noun] > inmate of institution > collectively population1950 1950 H. E. Goldin Dict. Amer. Underworld Lingo 162/2 Population,..the general body of inmates as differentiated from convicts in trusty jobs, hospital patients, and occupants of punishment or psychopathic observation wings. 1956 J. Resko Reprieve (1959) iii. xvi. 135 Our friends out in population took care of us. 1973 Philadelphia Inquirer 7 Oct. (Today Suppl.) 50/3 Sprague tried to block Soleni's move into general population. 1990 J. Welch Indian Lawyer 9 Once you got labeled you might as well serve the rest of your shift in PC, because somebody in population would get you. 3. The action or process of populating a place or region; the increasing in number of inhabitants. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > furnishing with inhabitants > [noun] peopling1611 populating1652 population1776 1776 Declar. Independence U.S.A. 4 July (single sheet) He [sc. the king] has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States. 1796 J. Morse Amer. Universal Geogr. (new ed.) I. 563 The population of the province was extremely rapid. 1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits x. 164 Population is stimulated, and cities rise. 1869 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest III. xii. 232 [Polygamy] could..be hardly looked on as on the whole conducive to population. 1925 W. H. Tillinghast tr. K. J. Ploetz Man. Universal Hist. 555 The discovery of gold in California (1848) had led to the rapid population of that territory, and in 1850 it became the 31st state. 2002 Lincolnshire Echo (Nexis) 10 Dec. 30 It was the overcrowding of the city and the opportunity for unlimited expansion in the wide open rural spaces south of Lincoln, that led to the industrialisation and rapid population of the area. II. Technical uses. 4. Statistics. A (real or hypothetical) totality of objects or individuals under consideration, of which the statistical attributes may be estimated by the study of a sample or samples drawn from it. ΘΚΠ the world > relative properties > number > probability or statistics > [noun] > population population1877 1877 F. Galton in Nature 12 Apr. 513/2 The number of pellets in each compartment represents the relative number in a population of seeds, whose weight deviates from the average, within the limits expressed by the distances of the sides of that compartment from the middle point. 1903 Biometrika 2 273 If the whole of a population were taken we should have certain values for its statistical constants, but in actual practice we are only able to take a sample. 1922 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) A. 222 329 It is unfortunate that in this memoir no sufficient distinction is drawn between the population and the sample. 1977 Accountants Weekly 29 July 17/1 The tests built into the program ensured that sample data extracted for audit checks came from a complete population, a fundamental requirement in auditing. 2002 S. G. Charlton in S. G. Charlton & T. G. O'Brien Handbk. Human Factors Testing & Eval. (ed. 2) x. 227 Based on a desired sampling error of 10% at 80% confidence, and for a generic population size of 1,000, the recommended sample size is 40 or more. 5. Genetics. A group of animals, plants, or humans, within which breeding occurs. ΘΚΠ the world > life > biology > biological processes > genetic activity > heredity or hereditary descent > [noun] > breeding group population1889 1889 F. Galton Nat. Inheritance iv. 35 The science of heredity is concerned with Fraternities and large Populations rather than with individuals, and must treat them as units. 1949 C. Stern Princ. Human Genetics 594 The genic constitution of the later populations will obviously depend on the genotypes of their second-generation ancestors. 1966 R. Ardrey Territorial Imperative iv. 138 A population, in biology, is a reproductive community. More sharply stated, it is any group of individuals who have a modest probability, within any generation, of meeting and mating. 1972 Sci. Amer. Jan. 100/3 He maintained four populations of Drosophila in the laboratory over a 48-month period. 2004 S. J. Suomi in C. G. Coll Nature & Nurture ii. 41 These monkeys, comprising approximately 5 to 10% of the population, seem unusually impulsive, insensitive, and overly aggressive in their interactions with other troop members. 6. Physics. The (number of) atoms or subatomic particles that occupy any particular energy state. ΘΚΠ the world > matter > physics > atomic physics > particle physics > [noun] > a particle > number occupying energy state population1928 the world > matter > physics > atomic physics > [noun] > particles occupying energy state population1971 1928 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 14 785 There is an intensity disymmetry favoring the P branch which has nothing to do with the distribution of population among the different rotational levels. 1938 R. W. Lawson tr. G. von Hevesy & F. A. Paneth Man. Radioactivity (ed. 2) viii. 88 The resulting gap in the atom, due to the incomplete population of the K-shell, may now be filled by the transition of an electron from the L-level into the K-level. 1971 Sci. Amer. June 22/1 By elevating more atoms to an upper energy level than exist at a lower level the absorption of excitation radiation produces an ‘inverted’ atomic population in the laser. 2002 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99 11581/1 At room temperature, these are the only such localized states to have significant population. 7. Astronomy. Any of several groups, originally two in number, into which stars and other celestial objects are categorized on the basis of where in the galaxy they were formed. Chiefly in population I n., population II n., population III n. at Compounds 2.The original two groups, I and II, were subsequently subdivided (into Ia, Ib, IIa, IIb, etc.), and a putative third group added (population III). ΘΚΠ the world > the universe > constellation > star-cluster > [noun] > population population1951 1944 W. Baade in Astrophysical Jrnl. 100 137 The stellar populations of the galaxies fall into two distinct groups, one represented by the..stars in our solar neighborhood (the slow-moving stars), the other by that of the globular clusters. Characteristic of the first group (type I) are highly luminous O- and B-type stars and open clusters; of the second (type II), short-period Cepheids and globular clusters.] 1951 Astrophysical Jrnl. 113 413 Highly luminous stars of population I. 1965 A. Blaauw in A. Blaauw & M. Schmidt Galactic Structure xx. 442 The intermediary type ‘disk population’ was added to the types I and II, and these were then subdivided into five categories representing a more or less continuous series of properties, ranging from ‘halo population II’ to extreme population I. 1992 S. P. Maran Astron. & Astrophysics Encycl. 201/2 About 20% of the globular clusters in our Galaxy are less metal poor and are found within about 1 or 2 kpc of the galactic plane..and thus belong to intermediate Population II, often called the thick-disk population. 2003 J. Scalzi Rough Guide to Universe xiii. 186 Astronomers have divided galactic star populations into two large categories: Population I stars, which are young, and Population II stars, which are rather older. Compounds C1. population basis n. ΚΠ 1844 Times 17 Oct. 4/3 Whether household suffrage, or the population basis, or the limit of 300 members, should or should not be adopted on the same contingency. 1903 Westm. Gaz. 31 Oct. 10/2 Australia,..on a population basis, is undoubtedly one of the largest consumers of books in the world. 1987 C. Reid Tea in China Cup ii, in Plays: One (1997) 40 Low-grade positions in the Northern Ireland Civil Service are allocated on a strict population basis. population census n. ΚΠ 1831 Times 15 July 4/3 His Majesty's ministers had thought it better to take as a rule the population census of 1821. 1968 Internat. Encycl. Social Sci. XII. 369/1 In most advanced countries illiteracy has been almost eliminated, and therefore questions on literacy are no longer included in population censuses. 1991 Atom Jan. 7/2 The definitive study by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) into cancer near nuclear establishments. population control n. ΚΠ 1908 Econ. Jrnl. 18 578 At other points Dr. Tenney is more truly inductive; and his essay as a whole is very helpful to a scientific view of the problem of population control. 1959 New Statesman 21 Mar. 401/1 Countries like India and Japan have made population-control a central feature in national policy, because they know that without it they are headed for disaster. 1996 R. Mistry Fine Balance (1997) vii. 315 It's..a service to the nation—small families are happy families, population control is most important. population cycle n. ΚΠ 1922 Rev. Econ. Stud. 4 245/1 Thus the limiting principle was the population cycle, the regulating principle was the business cycle. 1969 N. W. Pirie Food Resources ii. 70 A few plant and animal species..go through fairly regular population cycles. 1991 Nature Canada Fall 55/2 It's believed this behavior may account for population cycles in the cervids. population distribution n. ΚΠ 1909 Science 2 July 21/1 He has shown no ratio over the expected for the rural regions in terms of population distribution. 2004 Washington Post (Nexis) 11 Nov. To ask our children..to change schools at the beginning or in the middle of their elementary school years just to even out the population distribution in North Arlington schools seems downright mean. population drift n. ΚΠ 1883 Butte (Montana) Daily Miner 29 Aug. 2/1 The fact is nearly all our foreign and a large portion of our native population drift to the larger cities.] 1925 Bismarck (N. Dakota) Tribune 3 Mar. Continued population drift from farms to cities. 1931 Jrnl. Polit. Econ. 39 801 Few of these people ever return to the farm permanently, for the population drift has been continually to urban centers. 2004 Hull Daily Mail (Nexis) 19 May 17 Planning consultant Adrian James said completing Kingswood would help stem the population drift from Hull to the neighbouring East Riding. population growth n. ΚΠ 1867 S. Osgood N.Y. in 19th Cent. 77 Even London has less than half the average rate of population growth which New York has. 1924 Amer. Mercury Nov. 293/1 Books and articles dwelling upon the awful consequences or the potential blessings of population growth. 1994 New Scientist 23 Apr. 5/3 Calls by rich countries to limit population growth in poor countries were seen by many Third World governments as racist or politically motivated. population increase n. ΚΠ 1851 Jrnl. Statist. Soc. 14 307 The births increased during the second decennial period, from 1824 to 1833, 13.6 per cent., which corresponds with the population increase of 12.5 per cent. 1930 R. A. Fisher Genetical Theory Nat. Selection ii. 26 The Malthusian parameter of population increase. 1994 Afr. Environment & Wildlife Nov. 78/3 With a natural population increase of some five per cent a year, in the region of 4–500 animals have to be ‘taken off’ each year. † population-monger n. Obsolete rare ΚΠ 1826 W. Cobbett Rural Rides in Cobbett's Weekly Polit. Reg. 28 Oct. 288 The Scotch population-mongers and Malthus and his crew. population planning n. ΚΠ 1934 Helena (Montana) Independent 28 Dec. 1/2 Prof. Carver, a visiting faculty member at the University of California at Los Angeles, urged population planning as the solution of occupational congestion. 1974 Times 21 Jan. 6/2 The idea of population planning antagonized many countries. 2003 Courier Mail (Queensland) (Nexis) 9 Dec. 5 Without population planning, southeast Queensland..would suffer significant environmental and economic problems. population policy n. ΚΠ 1908 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 14 106 When such a civilized economic policy shall be accompanied by a corresponding population policy. 1944 J. S. Huxley On Living in Revol. xii. 131 It is very important that there should be a well-thought-out population policy for backward areas. 1992 Philadelphia Inquirer 22 Aug. a9/1 What was the President doing? Appointing pro-life judges, promoting gag rules and turning back the clock on population policies. population pressure n. ΚΠ 1849 Times 8 Jan. 4/2 From this admission it would result that the population pressure on the resources of the unions will be a continuing pressure of 857,128. 1931 J. S. Huxley What dare I Think? v. 165 Causing more babies to live and so creating greater population-pressure. 1995 Independent 20 May 6/1 A revolution in consumer lifestyles, emphasising frugality and ‘post-materialism’ and triggered by world population pressures,..will mark the opening decades of the 21st century. population question n. ΚΠ 1851 S. Colwell New Themes for Protestant Clergy 293 (heading) The population question and its discussions. 1911 G. B. Shaw Getting Married Pref. in Doctor's Dilemma 116 St. Paul's reluctant sanction of marriage;..his contemptuous ‘better to marry than to burn’ is only out of date in respect of his belief that the end of the world was at hand and that there was therefore no longer any population question. 2002 New Yorker 13 May 41/1 At one time I thought that the population question was the alpha and omega of the problem. population return n. ΚΠ 1801 Times 6 Mar. 1/1 Population returns. Tuesday next being the day appointed by the Act of Parliament lately passed for taking an Account of the Population. 1845 B. Disraeli Sybil ii. xvi. 313 The Population Returns of this country are very instructive reading. 2003 Lincolnshire Echo (Nexis) 25 Mar. 33 This shows up in the population returns with only 34 people living in Oxcombe all of whom would most likely have had an employment link to the Briggs estate. population survey n. ΚΠ 1919 Sandusky (Ohio) Reg. 13 Aug. 10/4 On the eve of the taking of the 1920 census, a population survey of cities of 25,000 or over has been made by the Newspaper Feature Bureau. 1953 Brit. Commonw. Forest Terminol.: Pt. I (Empire Forestry Assoc.) 14 Attractant, a substance attractive to insects, rodents, etc., used in population surveys or in control traps or baits. 1994 New Scientist 24 Dec. 10/1 This figure was calculated from a population survey carried out in 1991 using the ‘line transect’ method. population theory n. ΚΠ 1848 Spectator 29 Apr. 421/2 The population theory of Malthus stands or falls with the theory of Ricardo. 1966 Economist 17 Dec. 1253/3 Except in the matter of population theory, where he anticipated and influenced Malthus, Steuart had little or no effect on later economic thought in Britain. 2000 Independent 4 July (Tuesday Review section) 9/4 We had big battles about content. One was on Malthusian population theory [which Jay was keen to include]. population trend n. ΚΠ 1920 Amer. Econ. Rev. 10 80 It should be able to forsee or control the inventions, the discoveries, the weather cycles, the population trends, and the wars of the next half century, at least. 1933 W. S. Thompson & P. K. Whelpton (title) Population trends in the United States. 1995 New Scientist 4 Mar. 50/2 The winter population trend for the red-breasted goose looks very encouraging,..this is probably due to a shift to wintering grounds from the Caspian to the Black Sea. C2. population biologist n. an expert or specialist in population biology. ΚΠ 1939 Amer. Midland Naturalist 21 238 The foregoing remarks have dealt somewhat briefly with the points of attack and methods in present use by the population biologists. 1992 New Scientist 11 July 13/1 A British population biologist..who represents the World Conservation Union..at the IWC. population biology n. the branch of biology that deals with the patterns and causes of diversity within and among populations, esp. as regards their ecology, demography, epidemiology, etc. ΘΚΠ the world > life > biology > study > [noun] > genetics > branches of eugenics1883 thremmatology1888 negative eugenics1908 phenogenetics1928 cytogenetics1930 genetic engineering1934 radiogenetics1934 population biology1935 population genetics1938 immunogenetics1947 gengineering1985 archaeogenetics1999 1935 Man 35 109/1 The sections include..population biology and race hygiene. 1979 Nature 9 Aug. 455 (heading) Population biology of infectious diseases. 1995 New Scientist 25 Mar. 7/3 John Beddington, professor of population biology at Imperial College, London, says that if fishing continues at today's levels, marine ecosystems will be radically altered. population centre n. a densely populated urban area; the area of a particular country, region, etc., which is most densely populated. ΚΠ 1867 Times 27 Aug. 7/4 Every great population centre contains several thousands such provident, industrious, deserving men. 1922 F. H. Dixon Railroads & Govt. x. 140 Routing was also worked out to take advantage of ruling grades and to avoid congested population centres. 1993 D. Lamb Sense of Place 23 The population center of the United States... Today it's at Steelville, Missouri..and the density is seventy people per square mile (and 9,883 in Washington, D. C., the nation's ‘murder capital’). population curve n. a graph showing the variation of population with time. ΘΚΠ the world > people > science of mankind > [noun] > study of populations > graph showing variation in population population curve1875 the world > relative properties > number > probability or statistics > [noun] > graph > relating to population population curve1875 population pyramid1927 survivorship curve1953 1875 H. W. Watson & F. Galton in Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 4 142 The population curve will, in this case, be a straight line parallel to Ox. 1935 Proc. Prehistoric Soc. 1 11 Advances of critical importance to humanity should be followed by such a multiplication as to be conspicuously reflected in the population curve. 1991 J. Pardoe How Many Times can you say Goodbye? (BNC) 87 In the Western world there is an older and ageing population that is radically altering the shape of the population curve. population explosion n. a rapid or sudden marked increase in the size of a population. ΘΚΠ the world > life > source or principle of life > birth > confinement > [noun] > childbirth or delivery > population explosion baby boom1879 bulge1930 population explosion1946 baby boomlet1963 echo boom1975 1946 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 22 Dec. 4/5 One is what he [sc. Eugene Staley of the Institute of Pacific Relations] calls the danger of a ‘population explosion’. He is not talking the old ‘yellow peril’ phobia of 40 years ago. He is talking about keeping birth and death rates fairly close together. 1990 E. Harth Dawn of Millennium (1991) 4 The triple threats of population explosion, environmental decay, and annihilation by nuclear conflict. population-explosive adj. that causes a population explosion. ΚΠ 1967 Punch 3 May 637/3 This two-way flow, once started, would never stop; no government, much less any shipping company, could ever stop such a flow, population-explosive, travel-agency-prodded and democratic. population geneticist n. an expert or specialist in population genetics. ΚΠ 1948 Evolution 2 95/2 This view, so acceptable a priori to the population-geneticist and so difficult, apparently, for the traditional ecologist. 1977 Nature 6 Jan. 26/2 The basic interests of the population geneticist of course lie in the realm of population dynamics, and the knowledge of allele frequencies is an essential prerequisite to further work. 1990 J. Bishop & M. Waldholz Genome ii. 51 Population geneticists study families to see if a particular trait..is being passed from one generation to another in the pattern dictated by Mendel's laws of inheritance. population genetics n. the branch of genetics that deals mathematically with the distribution of and change in gene frequencies in populations from one generation to another. ΘΚΠ the world > life > biology > study > [noun] > genetics > branches of eugenics1883 thremmatology1888 negative eugenics1908 phenogenetics1928 cytogenetics1930 genetic engineering1934 radiogenetics1934 population biology1935 population genetics1938 immunogenetics1947 gengineering1985 archaeogenetics1999 1938 Science 2 Dec. 9/2 (advt.) Much new material has been added on salivary gland chromosomes, cytoplasmic inheritance, population genetics, inbreeding, heterosis. 1984 M. J. Taussig Processes in Pathol. & Microbiol. (ed. 2) vii. 834 The relationship between gene frequencies and affected or carrier individuals is given by the Hardy–Weinberg law, a rule of fundamental importance in population genetics. 1995 Sci. News 25 Nov. 366/3 Early support for cultural group selection came from studies inspired by population genetics. population inversion n. Physics a transposition of the relative numbers of atoms or molecules occupying certain energy levels (normally with more particles in a higher state than in a lower one, as in a laser). ΘΚΠ the world > matter > physics > atomic physics > [noun] > particles occupying energy state > transposition of number of optical pumping1952 population inversion1961 inversion1963 1961 Physical Rev. Lett. 6 106/1 Population inversions are achieved between several Ne levels by means of excitation transfer. 1995 Sci. Amer. Feb. 52 Masers and lasers arise from a condition known as population inversion, in which the number of atoms or molecules in a higher-energy state exceeds that in a lower-energy state—the reverse of the normal state of affairs. population I n. Astronomy a population of relatively young, metal-rich, highly luminous stars believed to have formed from the debris of other stars, together with other young celestial objects located in the galactic disc. ΚΠ 1951 Astrophysical Jrnl. 113 413 Highly luminous stars of population I. 1975 L. Gratton in G. Setti Struct. & Evol. Galaxies 30 Apparently, during a time as short as a few times 10⁸ years all the halo population II stars have been formed and since then only population I stars have been born. 1992 S. P. Maran Astron. & Astrophysics Encycl. 729/2 A subgroup of the δ Scuti variables may be astrophysically different from the normal Population I δ Scuti variables: the SX Phe stars (Population II). population pyramid n. a roughly triangular figure on a level base, the width of which at any height indicates the numbers having an age proportional to that height; a population distribution. ΘΚΠ the world > life > biology > laboratory analysis > measure > [noun] > record or graph plethysmogram1894 population pyramid1927 survival curve1936 Scatchard plot1958 zeugmatogram1973 the world > relative properties > number > probability or statistics > [noun] > graph > relating to population population curve1875 population pyramid1927 survivorship curve1953 1927 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 32 873 The population pyramid of the Jews of western Europe as compared with the rest of the population shows a relatively small number of children and a much larger proportion of old people. 1976 Nature 1 July 19/1 As a result of their high crude birth rate..the population pyramid has a relatively broad base; 51·8% are less than 20 yr old and 28·7% are less than 10 yr old. 1991 P. M. Mather Computer Applic. in Geogr. 191 Figure 6.6(a) shows the population of Peru in 1983 in the form of a population pyramid. population III n. Astronomy a hypothetical population of short-lived supermassive stars that may have existed before the period of galaxy formation, proposed in order to account for the observed metallicity of population II stars. ΚΠ 1966 Science 18 Mar. 1418/3 Woolf noted that these first-generation ‘Population-III’ stars in our galaxy were probably large (10 solar masses) and short-lived (about 10⁷ yr). 1987 Nature 30 Apr. 829/1 A recent paper by Cayrel adds an interesting twist to speculation on the whereabouts of those most elusive of astronomical objects, Population III stars. 2003 Sci. Let. (Nexis) 17 Feb. 8 The theory of population III stars suggests they are long dead in the local Universe. population II n. Astronomy a population of old, red stars formed early in the history of their parent galaxy, the earliest of which are thought to be coeval with their galaxy. ΚΠ 1952 C. Payne-Gaposchkin Stars in Making iv. 74 The names ‘Populations I and II’ were originally given by Baade to the two groups of stars. As we shall see, they probably represent extremes rather than an absolute distinction. 1992 S. P. Maran Astron. & Astrophysics Encycl. 685/1 Approximately 50 variable stars in globular clusters are presently known to be Population II Cepheids. 1996 K. Croswell Alchemy of Heavens x. 122 Intermediate population II resembles the thick disk, and halo population II is the Galactic halo. Derivatives popuˈlationless adj. rare devoid of population; uninhabited. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > [adjective] > not unbiggedc1175 desert1297 void1338 desolatec1374 unhabited1490 inhabitable?1529 disinhabit1530 depopulate1531 uninhabita1540 unpeopled1547 undwelta1557 uninhabited1571 dishabited1577 dispeopled1577 unhabit1580 disinhabited1600 desertful1601 unmanned1609 inhabited1614 peopleless1621 deserted1629 depopulated1632 unhabitated1648 unseated1662 desolated1693 unpopulous1715 unsettled1724 unpopulated1776 bandless1862 populationless1885 unlived-in1927 1885 A. J. C. Hare Stud. Russia ii. 76 Endless are the open spaces..almost populationless. 1948 Sociometry 11 17 A populationless situation; no people recorded in the data. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022). † populationn.² Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymons: Latin populātiōn-, populātiō. Etymology: < classical Latin populātiōn-, populātiō action of laying waste < populāt- , past participial stem of populārī , populāre populate v.¹ + -iō -ion suffix¹. Compare Middle French population (1468, rare). Obsolete. The action of laying waste to a country or region; devastation. ΘΚΠ the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > [noun] > devastation or desolation harryingc900 harrowingc1000 wastinga1300 destructionc1330 harryc1330 wastenessa1382 wastitya1382 desolation1382 unroningnessa1400 wrackc1407 exile1436 havoc1480 hership1487 vastation1545 vastitude1545 sackc1550 population1552 waste1560 ravishment1570 riotingc1580 pull-down1588 desolating1591 degast1592 devastation1603 ravage1611 wracking1611 ravagement1766 herriment1787 carnage1848 wastage1909 enhavocking- 1552 R. Huloet Abcedarium Anglico Latinum Foraging, population, or wastinge of a countrey, populatio. 1587 A. Fleming et al. Holinshed's Chron. (new ed.) III. 48/2 The effusion of innocent bloud, the population of countries, the ruinating of ample regions. 1602 W. Watson Decacordon Ten Quodlibeticall Questions 75 Population, ruine, and destruction of their natiue country and commonwealth. 1656 T. Blount Glossographia Population (populatio), a wasting, destroying, robbing, and spoiling of people. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2021). < n.¹a1544n.²1552
随便看	moonlightings moonlightkissed moonlights moonlighty moonlike moonliker moonlikest moonlily moonling moonlit moonliter moonlitest moonlitten moonlitter moonlittest moonlocked moonloved moonmad moonmade moonmadness moonmaid moonman moonmark moonmellowed moonmilk

populationn.1

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† populationn.2

populationn.¹

† populationn.²