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overpopulation

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 11 July 2022

Etymology

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From over- (prefix meaning ‘excessive; excessively’) +‎ population.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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overpopulation (countable and uncountable, plural overpopulations)

  1. (biology, demography) An excessive number of occupants (people, animals, plants, etc.) in a particular area; specifically, when the number of occupants exceeds the ability of that area to provide for them.
    • 1860 August–December, John Ruskin, “Essay I. The Roots of Honour.”, in “Unto This Last:” Four Essays on the First Principles of Political Economy, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1862, →OCLC, page 162:
      I hope for another end, though not, indeed, from any of the three remedies for over-population commonly suggested by economists. These three are, in brief—Colonization; Bringing in of waste lands; or Discouragement of Marriage.
    • 1891 February–December, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Depopulation”, in In the South Seas […], New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1896, →OCLC, part I (The Marquesas), page 37:
      Over the whole extent of the South Seas, from one tropic to another, we find traces of a bygone state of over-population, when the resources of even a tropical soil were taxed, and even the improvident Polynesian trembled for the future.
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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “overpopulation, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “overpopulation, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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