pastoral

1. 1.

   of or relating to a pastor

   “pastoral work”

   “a pastoral letter”
2. 2.

   relating to shepherds or herdsmen or devoted to raising sheep or cattle

   “pastoral seminomadic people”

   “pastoral land”

   “a pastoral economy”

   Synonymsbucolic
3. 3.

   (used with regard to idealized country life) idyllically rustic

   “a country life of arcadian contentment”

   “a pleasant bucolic scene”

   “charming in its pastoral setting”

   “rustic tranquility”

   Synonymsarcadianbucolic

   Similarrural

Other forms of pastoral

plural

pastorals·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about pastoral

What does pastoral mean?

pastoral means "a musical composition that evokes rural life". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in pastoral?

pastoral has 3 syllables: pas-to-ral. The stress falls on "pas". In IPA it is /ˈpæstɚəl/.

What is another word for pastoral?

Close synonyms include pastorale, idyll, idyl, bucolic, arcadian. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is pastoral a common word?

pastoral is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.