pastoral

comparative more pastoral · superlative most pastoral

1. 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

2. Relating to rural life and scenes, in particular of poetry.

   We were living a pastoral life.

   3 more examples

   […] 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

   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.

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

   He wanders west as far as Memphis, a solitary migrant upon that flat and pastoral landscape.

   1985, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian […] , →OCLC

   Synonyms: bucolic, rustic

3. 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

   2 more examples

   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.”

   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

   Synonyms: cleric, clerical, black-collar, cleric, clerical

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