POP'ULOUS, adjective [Latin populosus.] Full of inhabitants; containing many inhabitants in proportion to the extent of the country. A territory containing fifteen or twenty inhabitants to a square mile is not a populous country. The Netherlands, and some parts of Italy, containing a hundred and fifty inhabitants to a square mile, are deemed populous
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI