PASTORAL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pastoral

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/pˈæstərəl/ Listen

adjective

Pastoral adj.

1.

Of or pertaining to shepherds; hence, relating to rural life and scenes; as, a pastoral life.

2.

Relating to the care of souls, or to the pastor of a church; as, pastoral duties; a pastoral letter.

Pastoral staff (Eccl.), a staff, usually of the form of a shepherd's crook, borne as an official emblem by a bishop, abbot, abbess, or other prelate privileged to carry it. See Crook, and Crosier.

Pastoral Theology, that part of theology which treats of the duties of pastors.

noun

Pastoral n.

1.

A poem describing the life and manners of shepherds; a poem in which the speakers assume the character of shepherds; an idyl; a bucolic. "A pastoral is a poem in which any action or passion is represented by its effects on a country life."

2.

(Mus.) 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.

(Eccl.) A letter of a pastor to his charge; specifically, a letter addressed by a bishop to his diocese; also (Prot. Epis. Ch.), a letter of the House of Bishops, to be read in each parish.

See images of 'Pastoral'

Etymology of 'Pastoral'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Pastoral" Quotes from Famous Books

... Dorothy left him to what consolation he could find in such china-pastoral abuse as the gallants of the day would, with the aid of poetic penny-trumpet, cast upon offending damsels—Daphnes and Chloes, and, in the mood, heathen shepherdesses in general. But, fortunately for himself, how great ...

— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... prelates was their non-residence in the dioceses committed to their pastoral supervision. In fact, when the Council of Trent, by one of its first decrees, forbade a plurality of benefices and enjoined residence, its action was regarded as an open declaration of war against the French episcopate.[97] But if this abuse is deplored by Roman Catholic ...

— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... the valley of Guyon, and to the spital, but could never find anybody to speak unto; whereupon they returned a little back, and took occasion to pass above the aforesaid hospital to try what intelligence they could come by in those parts. In which resolution riding on, and by chance in a pastoral lodge or shepherd's cottage near to Coudray hitting upon the five pilgrims, they carried them way-bound and manacled, as if they had been spies, for all the exclamations, adjurations, and requests that they could make. ...

— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... the clear, delicate notes of a bird's song—just as though the throbbing motors, the whizzing shells and the frightened wailing of the women were nothing but the harmonies devised by the divine composer of some military-pastoral symphony to sustain the slender melody of ...

— General Bramble • Andre Maurois

... over her brain, and ravaged her heart: and after so long a period of calamity, during which she had been rejected from human sympathy, she was again gathered within the fold of Christian fellowship in the pastoral churchyard of Utragan. On a grey and silent afternoon a funeral was beheld by those who stood upon the mountains above Utragan winding through the valleys to the quiet chapel at their foot. It stopped in a secluded angle of the churchyard at a spot known to ...

— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

Copyright © 2025 Free Translator.org