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''pastoral'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260915190735-00-⌔

pastoral - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

pastoral (comparative more pastoral, superlative most pastoral)

  • Of or pertaining to shepherds or herders of other livestock.
    • ✤ Synonyms: shepherdish, shepherdly
    • ✤ 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.1
  • Relating to rural life and scenes, in particular of poetry.
    • ✤ Synonyms: bucolic, rustic
    • ✤ 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!2
    • ✤ There was a tone, too, of pastoral poetry shed over the new scenes to which they were just introduced, that had a greater effect from the contrast to those, artificial and crowded, which they had just left.3
    • ✤ He wanders west as far as Memphis, a solitary migrant upon that flat and pastoral landscape.4
  • 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.
    • ✤ Synonyms: cleric, clerical; see also Thesaurus: clerical
    • ✤ * pastoral duties*
    • ✤ a pastoral letter
    • ✤ “In terms of pastoral consequences,” Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who leads the Vatican’s office on doctrine, said in a news conference Monday, “the principle of welcoming all is clear in the words of Pope Francis.”5

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?6
  • (music) 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.
  • (religion, Christianity) A letter of a pastor to his charge; specifically, a letter addressed by a bishop to his diocese.
  • (religion, Christianity) A letter of the House of Bishops, to be read in each parish.

Etymology

From Middle French, Old French pastoral, from Latin pāstōrālis, from pāstor (“shepherd”), + adjective suffix -ālis.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˈpɑːstə.ɹəl/(trap–bath split),/ˈpæs.tə.ɹəl/, /ˌpæsˈtɔːɹəl/(non-standard but common)
  • (US) IPA: /ˈpæs.tə.ɹəl/, /ˌpæsˈtɔːɹəl/(non-standard but common)
    • Audio (Southern England (/ˌpæsˈtɔːɹəl/)): 🔊
    • Audio (Southern England (/ˈpæs.tə.ɹəl/)): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɔːɹəl

Printed 2026-09-15.

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Footnotes

  1. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 160: ↩

  2. 1798, Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Lines Above Tintern Abbey, lines 16–18: ↩

  3. 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 219–220: ↩

  4. 1985, Cormac McCarthy, *Blood Meridian […] *, →OCLC: ↩

  5. 2024 April 8, Jason Horowitz, Elisabetta Povoledo, quoting Víctor Manuel Fernández, “Vatican Document Casts Gender Change and Fluidity as Threat to Human Dignity”, in The New York Times ‎: ↩

  6. 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 115: ↩

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