[pas-ter-uh
l, pah-ster-] 
| 1. | having the simplicity, charm, serenity, or other characteristics generally attributed to rural areas: pastoral scenery; the pastoral life. |
| 2. | pertaining to the country or to life in the country; rural; rustic. |
| 3. | 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. |
| 4. | of, pertaining to, or consisting of shepherds. |
| 5. | of or pertaining to a pastor or the duties of a pastor: pastoral visits to a hospital. |
| 6. | used for pasture, as land. |
| 7. | 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. |
| 8. | a picture or work of art representing the shepherds' life. |
| 9. | Music. pastorale. |
| 10. | a treatise on the duties of a pastor. |
| 11. | a letter to the people from their spiritual pastor. |
| 12. | a letter to the clergy or people of an ecclesiastical district from its bishop. |
| 13. | Also called pastoral staff. crosier (def. 1). |
A work of art that celebrates the cultivated enjoyment of the countryside. The poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” by Christopher Marlowe, is a pastoral. Its first stanza reads:
Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
pastoral staff
staff with a curved top that is a symbol of the Good Shepherd and is carried by bishops of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and some European Lutheran churches and by abbots and abbesses as an insignia of their ecclesiastical office and, in former times, of temporal power. It is made of metal or carved wood and is often very ornate. Possibly derived from the ordinary walking stick, it was first mentioned as a sign of a bishop's ruling power in 633 at the fourth Council of Toledo. French bishops adopted it in the late 8th century, and it was gradually adopted throughout Christendom. Originally a staff with a cross, sphere, or tau cross on top, it acquired its present form by the 13th century.
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