population

Noun

1. The people living within a political or geographical boundary.
   • The population of New Jersey will not stand for this!
   • “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...
2. The people with a given characteristic.
   • 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.
   • The town’s population is only 243.
   • population explosion; population growth

   1. (cellular automata) The number of living cells in a pattern.

      • This is one of several known "sawtooth" patterns, in which the population is unbounded but does not tend to infinity. - 1996 December 16, Dean Hickerson, “What is his name ?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):
      • 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...
      • End population was 101,764 cells, but with some significant spikes and drops along the way. - 2008 May 31, Dave Greene, “Life: B37/S23 - A Chaotic Universe.”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):
4. A collection of organisms of a particular species, sharing a particular characteristic of interest, most often that of living in a given area.
   • 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. - 2006, Flora of North America, North of Mexico:
   • 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...
5. A group of units (persons, objects, or other items) enumerated in a census or from which a sample is drawn.
   • […]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. - 1883, Francis Galton et al., “Final Report of the...
6. The act of filling initially empty items in a collection.
   • John clicked the Search button and waited for the population of the list to complete.
7. General population.
   • 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. - 1985 April 6, Jackie Beattie, “More Power To Us All”, in...