▪ I. pastoral, a. and n.
(ˈpɑːstərəl, ˈpæs-)
Also 7 erron. pastural.
[ad. L. pastōrāl-is, f. pastōr-em: see pastor n. and -al1. Cf. F. pastoral, in 12–13th c. pastural, Sp. pastoral, It. pastorale.]
A. adj. I. 1. Of or pertaining to shepherds or their occupation; of the nature of a shepherd; relating to, or occupied in, the care of flocks or herds.
| 1432–50 tr. Higden (Rolls) II. 229 Tubal exercisede firste musike to alleuiate the tediosenes pastoralle [L. tædium pastorale]. 1549 Compl. Scot. vi. 43 Pastoral and rustical occupatione. 1600 Holland Livy ix. xxxvi. 340 They were clad in pastoral weeds like heardmen. 1634 Milton Comus 345 Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops. 1794 Mrs. Radcliffe Myst. Udolpho vi, Fruits, cream, and all the pastoral luxury his cottage afforded. 1841 Elphinstone Hist. Ind. II. 613 Inhabited by pastoral tribes, who live in tents. 1849 H. Stephens Bk. of Farm (ed. 2) I. 532/1 Pastoral farms, devoted to sheep. 1859 Cornwallis New World I. 108 The Green Hills, a pastoral station, and twenty-five miles from Melbourne. |
2. a. Of land or country: Used for pasture. Hence of scenery or its features: Having the simplicity or natural charm associated with such country.
| 1790 Cowper Mother's Pict. 53 Once we call'd the past'ral house our own. 1794 Mrs. Radcliffe Myst. Udolpho i, The pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony. 1814 Wordsw. Yarrow Visited vi, The grace of forest charms decayed, And pastoral melancholy. 1847 Grote Greece ii. xxiv. III. 564 Epirus is essentially a pastoral country. 1872 Jenkinson Guide Eng. Lakes (1879) 42 The scenery round Esthwaite Water is purely pastoral. |
b. pastoral lease, in Australia and New Zealand, a lease of land for sheep or cattle farming.
| 1850 Papers Rel. Crown Lands in Austral. Colonies 95 in Parl. Papers XXXVII. 287 You are empowered to grant pastoral leases for eight years... No leases..whether pastoral or tillage leases, are to convey a perpetual right of renewal. 1894 W. Epps Land Syst. Australasia 154 In the event of a renewal of any pastoral lease being determined upon, it must be offered at auction 12 months before the expiry of the term. 1924 S. H. Roberts Hist. Austral. Land Settlement 293 Thus, after ten years of waste, the resumed areas of 1884, both in the centre and the west, were again placed under pastoral lease. 1948 V. Palmer Golconda iii. 18 Nominally the country around was held on pastoral lease by an old cattleman named Gourlay. 1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Nov. 413/2 At this period of Canterbury's development it would not have been possible for many of the so-called squatters to make a profit out of grazing sheep if they had been required to freehold the land. Though the pastoral lease was a partial answer, it did not give any security of tenure. 1953 A. Upfield Murder must Wait xix. 169 Prospecting pastoral leases in the far north of South Australia. 1959 A. McLintock Descr. Atlas N.Z. 38 With the growth in sheep numbers, regulations covering the granting of pastoral leases were laid down. |
3. Of literature, music, or works of art: Portraying the life of shepherds or of the country; expressed in pastorals.
| 1581 Sidney Apol. Poetrie (Arb.) 43 Is it then the Pastorall Poem which is misliked? 1641 Milton Ch. Govt. ii. Introd., Wks. (1847) 43/2 The Scripture..affords us a divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon. 1751 Mrs. Delany in Life & Corr. (1861) III. 52 Pretty pastoral music. 1779–81 Johnson L.P., Phillips Wks. IV. 193 The Italians soon transferred Pastoral Poetry into their own language..and all nations of Europe filled volumes with Thyrsis and Damon, and Thestylis and Phyllis. 1860 Ruskin Mod. Paint. V. ix. i. 198 Pastoral,..consisting usually of simple landscape,..with figures, cattle, and domestic buildings. 1895 C. H. Herford Spenser's Sheph. Cal. Introd. 27 Drama and romance, dialogue and lyric, satire and epigram, had all..invested themselves in pastoral disguise. Nay, there were examples even of the pastoral sermon and the pastoral prayer. |
II. 4. Of or pertaining to a pastor or shepherd of souls; having relation to the spiritual care or guidance of a ‘flock’ or body of Christians.
pastoral epistles, a collective name given to the epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus, which deal largely with the work of a pastor. pastoral letter = pastoral n. 5 b. pastoral staff = crozier 3.
| 1526 Bp. Tunstall Proclam. in Foxe A. & M. (1583) 1017/2 By the duty of our pastorall office. 1548–9 (Mar.) Bk. Com. Prayer Cert. Notes Ministr. Thinges, His pastorall staffe in his hande. 1607 Statutes in Hist. Wakefield Gram. Sch. (1892) 63 Not called..to a pastorall charge. 1640 White in R. Baillie Canterb. Self-Convict. 75 Some private forme of pasturall collation with their flock. 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. xxxii. III. 184 The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople. 1836 Arnold in Stanley Life (1845) II. 22, I am..engaged upon the three Pastoral Epistles. 1858 J. Purchas Direct. Angl. 18 The Pastoral Staff in form somewhat resembles a shepherd's crook. 1885 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 351/2 Pastoral letter, a letter addressed, in his pastoral capacity, by a bishop to his clergy, or the laity of his diocese, or both. 1957 Oxf. Dict. Chr. Ch. 1023/2 Pastoral letters,..official letters addressed by a bishop to all members of his diocese. |
B. n. (Elliptical uses of the adj.) I. † 1. A person of pastoral occupation, a shepherd or herdsman. Obs. rare—1.
| 1607 Barley-Breake (1877) 5 Old Elpin with his sweete and louely May Would oft prepare (as Pastorals vie to doe) To keepe their sheep. |
† 2. pl. Pastoral games or pastimes. Obs. rare—1.
| a 1586 Sidney Arcadia i. (1590) M v, To know whether it were not more requisite for Zelmanes hurt to rest, then sit vp at those pastimes; and she..earnestly desiring to haue Pastorals, Basilius commanded it should be at the gate of the lodge. |
3. a. A poem, play, or the like, in which the life of shepherds is portrayed, often in an artificial and conventional manner; also extended to works dealing with simple rural and open-air life.
| 1584 in Cunningham Accts. Revels (Shaks. Soc.) 188 A pastorall of Phillyda and Choryn presented and enacted before her Mate by her highnes servauntes on S{supt}. Stephens daie. 1589 Fleming (title) The Bvcoliks of Pvblivs Virgilivs Maro,..otherwise called his Pastoralls, or Shepherds Meetings. c 1620 Robinson Mary Magd. Ded. 5 Some..Cronicles and Warlicke strains admire; Others a deepe conceited Pastorall. 1706 Walsh Let. to Pope 24 June, In looking over my old Italian Books, I find a great many Pastorals and Piscatory Plays. 1838 Lytton Alice v. viii, Persons of our rank do not marry like the Corydon and Phyllis of a pastoral. 1949 Poetry (Chicago) LXXXIII. 245 Pastoral. In Empson, a frequent literary device ‘of putting the complex into the simple’ by a process of inversion; e.g., the last shall be first, a little child shall lead them, etc. ‘The essential trick of the old pastoral, which was felt to imply a beautiful relation between rich and poor, was to make simple people express strong feelings (felt as the most universal subject, something fundamentally true about everybody) in learned and fashionable language (so that you wrote about the best subject in the best way).’ 1957 N. Frye Anat. Crit. 43 The pastoral of popular modern literature is the Western Story. |
b. A pastoral picture or scene in art.
| 1819 Keats Ode Grecian Urn 45 O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens over⁓wrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou silent form... Cold Pastoral! 1903 Westm. Gaz. 23 Nov. 2/2 The most striking of the Gainsboroughs..is the large ‘pastoral’ which hangs in the middle of the North Wall. |
c. Mus. = pastorale 1.
| 1851 Thackeray Eng. Hum. iv. (1853) 176 The pretty little personages of the pastoral..dance their loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ. |
4. Pastoral poetry as a form or mode of literary composition.
| 1598 Meres Pallad. Tamia 284 As Theocritus in Greeke, Virgil and Mantuan in Latine, Sanazar in Italian..are the best for pastorall. 1602 Shakes. Ham. ii. ii. 416 The best Actors in the world, either for Tragedie, Comedie, Historie, Pastorall. 1713 Pope Guard. No. 40 ¶2 The first rule of pastoral, that its idea should be taken from the manners of the golden age, and the moral formed upon the representation of innocence. 1829 Hood in The Gem 181 The Golden Age is not to be regilt; Pastoral is gone out, and Pan extinct. 1895 C. H. Herford Spenser's Sheph. Cal. Introd. 36 Pastoral, from Vergil onward, has been persistently allegorical. |
II. 5. a. ‘A book relating to the cure of souls’ (J.).
Cf. the title of St. Gregory's Cura Pastoralis.
| 1395 Purvey Remonstr. (1851) 3 This article is taught bi seynt Gregori in his morals and in his pastoralis. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 87 b, So sayth saynt Gregory in his pastoralles. 1632 Herbert Country Parson To Rdr., Others..may..add to those points which I have observed, until the Book grow to a complete Pastoral. 1824 Watt Bibl. Brit. I. s.v. St. Gregory, A Pastoral, or a Treatise on the Duties of a Pastor. 1892 C. G. M'Crie Publ. Worship Presb. Scot. i. 20 Among the books are a Pastoral [etc.]. |
b. A letter from a spiritual pastor to his flock; esp. a letter from a bishop to the clergy or people of his diocese.
| 1865 Lecky Ration. (1878) I. 143 The pastorals of French bishops occasionally relate apparitions of the Virgin. 1885 Manch. Exam. 17 Feb. 5/6 The Lenten pastoral..was read in the Roman Catholic churches of the archdiocese of Dublin on Sunday. |
c. pl. The pastoral epistles: see A. 4.
| 1901 Dods in Expositor July 71 In considering the authorship of the Pastorals. 1902 J. Denney Death of Christ iii. 115 Leaving out the Pastorals, Paul wrote his other epistles within the space of ten years. |
6. A pastoral staff, a crozier.
| 1658 Hist. Queen Christina 407 They showed her the rod of Moses, the pastorall of Aaron, Arca Foederis [etc.]. 1672 Lond. Gaz. No. 670/4 The Officers at Arms carrying the Pastoral and Mitre. 1903 Westm. Gaz. 15 July 1/2 Twenty-eight tiaras ornamented with precious stones,..sixteen pastorals in gold and precious stones. |
7. Comb., as pastoral-maker, pastoral-monger.
| 1713 Steele Guard. No. 30 ¶2 The generality of pastoral-writers. a 1720 Sheffield (Dk. Buckhm.) Wks. (1753) I. 146 Whose simple profession's a pastoral-maker. 1783 Blair Rhet. (1812) III. 113 Our common Pastoral-mongers. |
Hence ˈpastorally adv.; ˈpastoralness.
| 1752 Newton Milton, Lycidas 193 note, Mr. Richardson conceives that by this last verse the poet says (pastorally) that he is hastening to, and eager on new work. 1887 ‘Sarah Tytler’ (Miss H. Keddie) Disappeared iv. 72 There was a curious sort of gentle pastoralness tempering its profundity... There was not a don..that did not appear..intimate with wild flowers and wild birds. 1899 Somerville & Ross Irish R.M. 232 A life pastorally compounded of Petty Sessions and lawn-tennis parties. |
Add: [A.] [II.] [4.] b. Educ. Of or pertaining to the care or responsibility of a teacher for a pupil's general well-being.
| 1954 F. G. Patton Good Morning, Miss Dove 104 Though it was her custom to pay pastoral calls at the residences of her pupils, she had never called upon William's grandmother. 1967 Counselling in Schools (Schools Council Working Paper xv) ii. 21 It is possible to underestimate the demanding and time-consuming nature of adequate pastoral care, despite its being commonly accepted in theory as part of the teacher's functions. 1971 Daily Tel. 18 Nov. 18 In the last few years, there has been a growing recognition that the school's responsibility for the individual child is pastoral as well as academic. 1989 Ibid. 13 Mar. 13/1 Outstanding pastoral system—six housemasters and six heads of year give immediate extra help to anyone struggling with class or homework, freeing class teachers for job of teaching. |
▪ II. pastoral, v.
(ˈpɑːstərəl, ˈpæ-)
[f. prec.]
intr. in phr. to pastoral it, To play the shepherd or shepherdess.
| 1828 Lights & Shades II. 298 Misses pastoraling it in their..sausage curls. 1891 J. W. Hales in Athenæum 1 Aug. 159/3 Simichidas proposes that they shall pastoral it together:—βουκολιασδώµεσθα. |
▪ III. pastoral
obs. variant of pastural.