DEPOPULATE, verb transitive [Latin To ravage or lay waste.] To dispeople; to unpeople; to deprive of inhabitants, whether by death, or by expulsion. It is not synonymous with laying waste or destroying, being limited to the loss of inhabitants; as, an army or a famine may depopulate a country. It rarely expresses an entire loss of inhabitants, but often a great diminution of their numbers. The deluge nearly depopulated the earth.

DEPOPULATE, verb intransitive To become dispeopled.