The story
- Latin · borrowed fromdēpopulātus
- English todaydepopulate
First attested in 1531; borrowed from Latin dēpopulātus, perfect active participle of dēpopulor (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)). Compare depeople, French dépeupler, Italian spopolare, Spanish despoblar, Portuguese despovoar and Romanian despopora; by surface analysis, de- + populate. Participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.