people
What people people the island?
The sentence asks what populations of humans inhabit the island.
Meanings (pronounced /ˈpiːpəl/)
human beings; persons collectively or as a group
- The people of the village welcomed the strangers.
- Many people commute by train.
to fill with inhabitants; to populate
- The novelist peoples her books with vivid characters.
- The new island was peopled by settlers from the mainland.
Word origin
From Old French peple, from Latin populus ('the people, a nation'). The verb sense ('to populate, fill with inhabitants') developed in Late Middle English from the noun, parallel to Latin populāre ('to populate'). The Latin root populus also gives us 'popular', 'population', 'public', 'pueblo', and 'depopulate'.
Fun fact
'To people' as a verb (meaning 'to populate') sounds slightly archaic in modern English — most speakers would say 'populate' instead. But it's the same Latin root: 'people' and 'populate' both descend from Latin populus. Authors and historians still use the verb 'to people' for poetic or literary effect.