pastoral
/ˈpæs.tə.ɹəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.54 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of or pertaining to shepherds or herders of other livestock.
adj
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.
noun
A poem describing the life and manners of shepherds; a poem in which the speakers assume the character of shepherds; an idyll; a bucolic.
noun
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.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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!"
- "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."
- "He wanders west as far as Memphis, a solitary migrant upon that flat and pastoral landscape."
- "pastoral duties"
Etymology
From Middle French, Old French pastoral, from Latin pāstōrālis, from pāstor (“shepherd”), + adjective suffix -ālis.
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpæs.tə.ɹəl/
- British English: /ˈpɑːstə.ɹəl/