Pasture

¹

[pah-tyr]

noun

1. Rogier or Roger de la Weyden, Rogier van der.

pasture

²

[pas-cher, pahs-]

noun

1. Also called pastureland. an area covered with grass or other plants used or suitable for the grazing of livestock; grassland.

2. a specific area or piece of such ground.

3. grass or other plants for feeding livestock.

verb (used with object)

pastured, pasturing 

1. to feed (livestock) by putting them out to graze on pasture.

2. (of land) to furnish with pasture.

3. (of livestock) to graze upon.

verb (used without object)

pastured, pasturing 

1. (of livestock) to graze in a pasture.

pasture

/ ˈpɑːstʃə /

noun

1. land covered with grass or herbage and grazed by or suitable for grazing by livestock

2. a specific tract of such land

3. the grass or herbage growing on it

verb

1. (tr) to cause (livestock) to graze or (of livestock) to graze (a pasture)

Other Word Forms

• pastural adjective
• pastureless adjective
• pasturer noun
• unpastured adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of Pasture¹

1250–1300; Middle English < Middle French < Late Latin pāstūra, equivalent to Latin pāst ( us ), past participle of pāscere to feed, pasture ( pastor ) + -ūra -ure

Word History and Origins

Origin of Pasture¹

C13: via Old French from Late Latin pāstūra, from pascere to feed

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. put out to pasture,

   1. to put in a pasture to graze.

   2. to dismiss, retire, or use sparingly as being past one's or its prime.

      Most of our older employees don't want to be put out to pasture.

see put out to grass (pasture).

Example Sentences

Meatpackers including Tyson have been losing hundreds of millions of dollars processing beef because of the lowest amount of cattle on U.S. pastures since the 1950s.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

He, along with the rest of us, watches Flo leave—for greener pastures.

Read more on Literature

“Children, have you been walking in the cow pastures? I fear you may need to clean off your shoes.”

Read more on Literature

Creators leave their old networks for greener pastures all the time, but the licenses to their titles stay with the company that originally produced them.

Read more on Salon

About 30 million sheep inhabit Britain’s pastures, but its vast network of hand-built, dry-stone walls—there are 20,000 miles of them in Yorkshire alone—ceased to require upkeep after the invention of electric fences.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• grass 
• grazing 
• meadow