Pastoral vs. Rural

Pastoraladjective

Of or pertaining to shepherds or herders of other livestock

Ruraladjective

Relating to the countryside or to agriculture.

Pastoraladjective

Relating to rural life and scenes

‘We were living a pastoral life.’;

Ruralnoun

(obsolete) A person from the countryside; a rustic.

Pastoraladjective

Relating to the care of souls, to the pastor of a church or to any local religious leader charged with the service of individual parishioners, i.e. a priest or rabbi.

‘pastoral duties; a pastoral letter’;

Ruraladjective

Of or pertaining to the country, as distinguished from a city or town; living in the country; suitable for, or resembling, the country; rustic; as, rural scenes; a rural prospect.

‘Here is a rural fellow; . . . He brings you figs.’;

Pastoralnoun

A poem describing the life and manners of shepherds; a poem in which the speakers assume the character of shepherds; an idyll; a bucolic.

Ruraladjective

Of or pertaining to agriculture; as, rural economy.

‘We turnTo where the silver Thames first rural grows.’; ‘Lay bashfulness, that rustic virtue, by;To manly confidence thy throughts apply.’;

Pastoralnoun

(music) 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.

Ruraladjective

living in or characteristic of farming or country life;

‘rural people’; ‘large rural households’; ‘unpaved rural roads’; ‘an economy that is basically rural’;

Pastoralnoun

A letter of a pastor to his charge; specifically, a letter addressed by a bishop to his diocese.

Ruraladjective

relating to rural areas;

‘rural electrification’; ‘rural free delivery (RFD)’;

Pastoralnoun

A letter of the House of Bishops, to be read in each parish.

Pastoraladjective

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

Pastoraladjective

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

Pastoralnoun

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.’;

Pastoralnoun

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.

Pastoralnoun

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.

Pastoralnoun

a musical composition that evokes rural life

Pastoralnoun

a letter from a pastor to the congregation

Pastoralnoun

a literary work idealizing the rural life (especially the life of shepherds)

Pastoraladjective

of or relating to a pastor;

‘pastoral work’; ‘a pastoral letter’;

Pastoraladjective

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

‘pastoral seminomadic people’; ‘pastoral land’; ‘a pastoral economy’;

Pastoraladjective

used of idealized country life;

‘a country life of arcadian contentment’; ‘a pleasant bucolic scene’; ‘charming in its pastoral setting’; ‘rustic tranquility’;

Pastoraladjective

suggestive of an idyll; charmingly simple and serene;

‘his idyllic life in Tahiti’; ‘the pastoral legends of America's Golden Age’;

Pastoraladjective

(of land) used for the keeping or grazing of sheep or cattle

‘scattered pastoral farms’;

Pastoraladjective

associated with country life

‘the view was pastoral, with rolling fields and grazing sheep’;

Pastoraladjective

(of a work of art) portraying or evoking country life, typically in a romanticized or idealized form.

Pastoraladjective

(in the Christian Church) concerning or appropriate to the giving of spiritual guidance

‘clergy doing pastoral work’; ‘pastoral and doctrinal issues’;

Pastoraladjective

relating to or denoting a teacher's responsibility for the general well-being of pupils or students

‘the pastoral care of boarders’;

Pastoralnoun

a work of literature portraying an idealized version of country life

‘the story, though a pastoral, has an actual connection with the life of agricultural labour’;

Pastoral

A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music that depicts such life in an idealized manner, typically for urban audiences.