v. [UN-2 4.]
1. trans. To divest or empty of people; to depopulate.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. (1546), K vj b. Bycause thou hast vnpeopled the lanes and stretes of workemen and officers, and hast peopled it all about with infinite vacaboundes.
1594. Kyd, Cornelia, IV. i. 106. [Caesar] hath vnpeopled most part of the earth.
1641. Milton, Reform., II. 60. They have unpeopl’d the Kingdome by expulsion of so many thousands.
1685. N. Crouch, Eng. Emp. Amer., i. 2. There is no such Torrid Zone where the Heat is so noxious as to unpeople any part of the Earth.
1768. Sterne, Sent. Journ., Paris. Thirty-five years … have unpeopled her dominions of the slaves of love.
1820. Byron, Mar. Fal., III. ii. 492. ’Tis mine to sound the knell, and strike the blow, Which shall unpeople many palaces.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Arabia, II. 328. Systematic ill government can do more to unpeople a land than … the Black Death.
transf. 1712. Blackmore, Creation, VII. 40. That costly banquets … May crown thy table,… Ransack the hills,… The lake unpeople, and despoil the flood.
1781. Westm. Mag., IX. 263. Now, to unpeople ev’ry brook, The long-neglected mesh repairs.
b. fig. To divest or strip of something.
1823. Chalmers, Serm., I. iv. 114. When the business of devotion is thus unpeopled of all its externals.
2. To divest of the status of a people.
1653. O. Sedgwick, Doubting Believer, 255. It is an unadvised folly in the suspension of Gods favour, to unsonne our selves, and unpeople our selves.
