Word.ws English Dictionary

pastorals

pastorals is the plural of pastoral.

Meaning of pastoral

Noun

pastoral (plural pastorals)

  1. 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
  2. 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.
  3. A letter of a pastor to his charge; specifically, a letter addressed by a bishop to his diocese.
  4. A letter of the House of Bishops, to be read in each parish.

See all 7 meanings of pastoral

Questions about pastorals

What is pastorals the plural of?
Pastorals is the plural of pastoral.

Words near pastorals in the dictionary

  1. pastoralized
  2. pastoralizes
  3. pastoralizing
  4. pastorally
  5. pastoralness
  6. pastorals
  7. pastorate
  8. pastorates
  9. Pastore
  10. Pastore della Lessinia e del Lagorai
  11. pastored

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pastorals (page history and authors); pastoral (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.

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Cite this entry: “pastorals.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pastorals. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.