- having the simplicity, charm, serenity, or other characteristics generally attributed to rural areas: pastoral scenery; the pastoral life.
- pertaining to the country or to life in the country; rural; rustic.
- portraying or suggesting idyllically the life of shepherds or of the country, as a work of literature, art, or music: pastoral poetry; a pastoral symphony.
- of, relating to, or consisting of shepherds.
- of or relating to a pastor or the duties of a pastor: pastoral visits to a hospital.
- used for pasture, as land.
- a poem, play, or the like, dealing with the life of shepherds, commonly in a conventional or artificial manner, or with simple rural life generally; a bucolic.
- a picture or work of art representing the shepherds' life.
- pastorale.
- a treatise on the duties of a pastor.
- a letter to the people from their spiritual pastor.
- a letter to the clergy or people of an ecclesiastical district from its bishop.
- crosier (def. 1).
- of, characterized by, or depicting rural life, scenery, etc
- (of a literary work) dealing with an idealized form of rural existence in a conventional way
- (of land) used for pasture
- denoting or relating to the branch of theology dealing with the duties of a clergyman or priest to his congregation
- of or relating to a clergyman or priest in charge of a congregation or his duties as such
- of or relating to a teacher's responsibility for the personal, as the distinct from the educational, development of pupils
- of or relating to shepherds, their work, etc
- a literary work or picture portraying rural life, esp the lives of shepherds in an idealizing way
- music a variant of pastorale
- Christianity
- a letter from a clergyman to the people under his charge
- the letter of a bishop to the clergy or people of his diocese
- the crosier or staff carried by a bishop as a symbol of his pastoral responsibilities
