pastoral
/ˈpɑːstə.ɹəl/US/ˈpæs.tə.ɹəl/
pastoral adjective: of or pertaining to shepherds or herders of other livestock.
Adjective
pastoral (comparative more pastoral, superlative most pastoral)
- Of or pertaining to shepherds or herders of other livestock.
- Like the Mesolithic age of 10,000-8000 B.C., the period 6000-4000 B.C. seems to be one of the fall of fortresses and the rise of pastoral nomadism.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 160
- Synonyms:
- shepherdish, shepherdly
- Relating to rural life and scenes, in particular of poetry.
- We were living a pastoral life.
- […] these pastoral farms, / Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke / Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!1798, Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Lines Above Tintern Abbey, lines 16–18
- Relating to the care of souls, to the pastor of a church or to any local religious leader charged with the service of individual parishioners, i.e. a priest or rabbi.
- pastoral duties
- a pastoral letter
- Synonyms:
- cleric, clerical, black-collar
Noun
pastoral (plural pastorals)
- A poem describing the life and manners of shepherds; a poem in which the speakers assume the character of shepherds; an idyll; a bucolic.
- Ethel was silent from surprise: she had prepared herself for anger—even sorrow; but ridicule left her without an answer. What could she say to a hearer, who only smiled, and to whom emotion was only a scene in a pastoral?1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 115
- A cantata relating to rural life; a composition for instruments characterized by simplicity and sweetness; a lyrical composition the subject of which is taken from rural life.
- A letter of a pastor to his charge; specifically, a letter addressed by a bishop to his diocese.
- A letter of the House of Bishops, to be read in each parish.
pastoral meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada
pastoral in Tamil
- கிராமிய, நாட்டுப்புற, புல்வெளியான, மேய்ப்பு, மேய்ப்புக்குரிய, போதகர் சம்பந்தமான
pastoral in Malayalam
- നാട്ടിൻപുറത്തുള്ള, മേച്ചിൽസ്ഥലമായി ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്ന, ഇടയലേഖനം
pastoral in Kannada
- ಕುರಿಮಂದೆಯ, ಹಳ್ಳಿಯ, ಹಳ್ಳಿಬಾಳ್ವೆಯ
Examples of pastoral in a sentence
- The pastoral scenes from those commercials don’t bear too much resemblance to the rote of daily life on a farm.
- Since the long centuries of pastoral agriculture, production has been transformed.
- It’s beautiful, but never naïvely so; the pastoral moments were offset by barrelhouse intrusions.
Synonyms of pastoral
Forms of pastoral
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more pastoral |
| superlative | most pastoral |
| Noun | |
| plural | pastorals |
Origin of pastoral
From Middle French, Old French pastoral, from Latin pāstōrālis, from pāstor (“shepherd”), + adjective suffix -ālis.
Words formed from pastoral
Phrases with pastoral
Words that rhyme with pastoral
41 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- circhoral
- circumoral
- corollifloral
- discifloral
- endaural
- endoral
- exosporal
- extrafloral
- extraoral
- fecal-oral
- goral
- horal
- hyperoral
- infraoral
- juxtaoral
- labiatifloral
- loral
- mayoral
- microfloral
- naso-oral
- nasoral
- nonoral
- paroral
- perioral
- peroral
- pharyngo-oral
- poral
- post-oral
- postoral
- pre-oral
- restoral
- roral
- soral
- sporal
- suboral
- supraoral
- thalamifloral
- thesaural
- transoral
- trinaural
- vicar-choral
Questions about pastoral
- What does pastoral mean?
- Pastoral means of or pertaining to shepherds or herders of other livestock.
- What is pastoral in Tamil?
- Pastoral in Tamil is கிராமிய, நாட்டுப்புற, புல்வெளியான. See Pastoral meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is pastoral?
- Pastoral can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce pastoral?
- Pastoral is pronounced /ˈpɑːstə.ɹəl/ (UK).
Words near pastoral in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pastoral (page history and authors); pastoral (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pastoral (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pastoral (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pastoral.wav.
Cite this entry: “pastoral.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pastoral. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.