Mal·thus  (māl'thəs)  British economist who wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), arguing that population tends to increase faster than food supply, with inevitably disastrous results, unless the increase in population is checked by moral restraints or by war, famine, and disease. Mal·thu'sian (-thōō'zhən, -zē-ən) adj. & n., Mal·thu'sian·ism n. |