Meaning & use
repeople
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Meaning
verbtransitiveformal
to fill a place with people again after it has become empty or thinly populated.
Grammar: Takes an object, often a place: repeople a region. More common in the passive: be repeopled.
Patterns
- repeople a place
- a place is repeopled
- repeople something with someone
After the plague, the king tried to repeople the abandoned villages.
The valley was slowly repeopled by farmers moving down from the hills.
Planners hoped to repeople the old town center with young families.
Word forms
| third person singular | repeoples |
|---|---|
| past tense | repeopled |
| past participle | repeopled |
| -ing form | repeopling |
Common combinations
- repeople a region
- The government wanted to repeople the empty region.
- repeople the countryside
- Cheap housing helped repeople the countryside.
- be repeopled with
- The district was repeopled with settlers from the south.
Synonyms and how they differ
- repopulate
- The everyday word for the same idea; use it in general writing, while 'repeople' sounds more literary and historical.
- resettle
- Focuses on moving people into a new home rather than simply making a place full of people again.
Opposites
Word family
- people verb
- to fill a place with people, usually in the passive: the area is peopled by fishermen.
- population noun
- the people living in a place, counted as a group.
Commonly confused: repeople or repopulate?
repeople vs repopulate
Much more common and neutral; 'repeople' is a rarer, more formal alternative with the same meaning.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'repeople' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Repeople' is transitive, so it takes a direct object (the place being filled). 'Repeople with' is possible only when the people are named, as in 'repeople the valley with farmers'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “repeople”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.