Meaning & use
demographic
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Meanings
nouncountablebusiness
A group of people who share features such as age, income or gender, especially when treated as a market or audience.
Grammar: Countable: the 18-to-24 demographic.
Patterns
- the something demographic
- a demographic of something
The show is popular with the young adult demographic.
Advertisers want to reach an older demographic.
adjectivebefore a noun
Relating to the make-up of a population, such as its size, age spread and growth.
Grammar: Comes before a noun: demographic change.
The town is undergoing a major demographic shift.
Demographic data helped the city plan new schools.
Word forms
| plural | demographics |
|---|
Common combinations
- target demographic
- Teenagers are the target demographic for the app.
- key demographic
- Voters under 30 are a key demographic.
- demographic change
- Demographic change is affecting rural schools.
- demographic trends
- Planners study demographic trends before building.
Synonyms and how they differ
- market segment
- Market segment is a business term and need not be based on population traits like age.
- audience
- Audience means the people who actually watch or listen, while a demographic is defined by shared traits.
Word family
- demographics noun
- statistics describing a population
- demography noun
- the study of populations
- demographer noun
- a person who studies populations
- demographically adverb
- in terms of population make-up
Commonly confused: demographic or demographics?
demographic vs demographics
Demographics is the plural noun for the data itself, while a demographic is one group.
Practice
The streaming service is trying to attract a younger ___.
Choose one answer.
A noun meaning a group of people is needed. Demography is the field of study, not a group.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “demographic”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.