ˌpɒpjʊˈleɪʃən pɒpjuːˈleɪʃən ˈjuːnɪˌvɜːs ˈjuːnəˌvɝs the act of populating (causing to live in a place) he deplored the population of colonies with convicted criminals (statistics) the entire aggregation of items from which samples can be drawn it is an estimate of the mean of the population a group of organisms of the same species inhabiting a given area they hired hunters to keep down the deer population the people who inhabit a territory or state the population seemed to be well fed and clothed 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.) 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