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• pasture
  pasture

  noun

  an area covered with grass or other plants used or suitable for the grazing of livestock; grassland.
• Pasture
  Pasture

  noun

  Rogier or Roger de la Weyden, Rogier van der.

pasture

¹ American  

[pas-cher, pahs-] / ˈpæs tʃər, ˈpɑs- /

noun

• pastures
  plural

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.

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verb (used with object)

• pastures,
  present (3rd person singular)
• pastured,
  past participle,  past
• pasturing
  present participle

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)

• pastures,
  present (3rd person singular)
• pastured,
  past participle,  past
• pasturing
  present participle

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

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.

Pasture ² American  

[pah-tyr] / pɑˈtür /

noun

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

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pasture British  

/ 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

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verb

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

pasture More Idioms  

1. see put out to grass (pasture).

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• pastures
  plural

Participles

• pasturing
  present
• pastured
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• pasture
  simple
• pastures
  simple
• have pastured
  perfect
• has pastured
  perfect
• am pasturing
  progressive
• are pasturing
  progressive
• is pasturing
  progressive
• have been pasturing
  perfect progressive
• has been pasturing
  perfect progressive

Past

• pastured
  simple
• had pastured
  perfect
• was pasturing
  progressive
• were pasturing
  progressive
• had been pasturing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will pasture
  simple
• will have pastured
  perfect
• will be pasturing
  progressive
• will have been pasturing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of pasture

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

Explanation

If your cattle are feeling hungry, you should let them pasture, or graze, in a grassy field known as a pasture. Pasture is both a noun and a verb associated with grazing animals. As a noun, a pasture is a field where animals such as horses and cattle can graze, or feed. Pasture can also refer to the grasses or other plants that grow in a pasture. As a verb, pasture means "to graze" or "to release animals into a pasture for grazing." You also might hear this word used in the idiom "Put out to pasture," which means "to retire someone," usually because of old age.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pasture Pasture pastures pastured pasturing

Livestock and crops die where pasture and water supplies are buried or contaminated by ash.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026

“There’s no paid staff, and we mostly support niche tech projects, like people exploring new ways to preserve trees in Morocco or to regeneratively regrow a pasture in Oregon,” Khosla told me.

From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026

Now she breeds her own yaks on 120 acres of pasture, foothills and mesa tops high in bucolic Ridgway, about 290 miles west of Denver.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2026

These ranchers have also grappled with high costs for necessities like animal feed, pasture maintenance and farm labor.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026

The robot might look up from the pasture and see Jad peeking around the corner of the barn, or see Jaya spying from the branches of a tree.

From "The Wild Robot Escapes" by Peter Brown

According to Aimee Picchi of CBS News, “The Kirkland Signature Organic Pasture Raised 24-Count Eggs were sold at 25 Costco locations across several states.”

From Salon ● Dec. 3, 2024

Amber Deakin was a passenger in a silver Vauxhall Vectra when it crashed on Baildon Road, near Pasture Road, in Bradford at about 23:45 GMT on Tuesday.

From BBC ● Jan. 6, 2023

Peaceful and quiet are a pair of words that appear like incantations in the passages of Winter Pasture devoted to her deepest feelings.

From Slate ● Feb. 24, 2021

At the small pebble beach near a park called Blackies Pasture, a surgical mask is tangled in the marsh at the edge of the Bay.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 10, 2020

Pasture and various kinds of forage are abundant, and there is a large output of milk and butter.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 5 "Cosway" to "Coucy" by Various

So Verstappen is earning a bit more money but, if Red Bull are still struggling for competitiveness next year, there will remain the prospect he could look for pastures new.

From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026

Moist vegetation needs to be planted among the pines, he said, and bigger fire buffer zones are needed on each town’s outer edges, such as ball fields or livestock pastures.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026

Some Americans don’t want these cash cows arriving in nearby pastures, and one naturally wonders why.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

But the summer's drought, which affected 95 percent of mainland France in July, has left normally rich pastures dry and bare.

From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026

As the coffin was lowered into the ground, the minister recited the psalm about lying down in green pastures and walking through the shadow of the valley of death and fearing no evil.

From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx

Makers of Abondance cheese in the Alps, for example, will be authorised to reduce the amount of pastured grass in their animals' diet from 50% to 15%.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

And while players won’t get free laundry and dry cleaning, or a menu containing pastured eggs and wild-caught seafood in player dining, they at least get access to cold plunges and courtesy cars.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 28, 2023

Lee sources the beef for her burgers from Seven Hills Food, the slaughterhouse and processing facility that specializes in pastured Virginia beef.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 17, 2021

Grass Roots Farmers' Cooperative sells grassfed beef, forested pork and pastured poultry from a network of small farms mostly located in Arkansas and Missouri and owns and operates its own processing.

From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2021

All morning, Matilde and I pastured the cows and sheep together, with Cheetah close at my side.

From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau

In the past 30 years, swaths of Nicaragua's vast Caribbean forests have been destroyed by settlers clearing land for agriculture, ranchers pasturing cattle, and loggers harvesting precious wood.

From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2020

“We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.”

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 19, 2015

“And what is the history? The horse pasturing has been going on for a long time there with no objection.”

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 24, 2015

The horse in question, Raisa, might have expected a quiet pasturing after a working life carrying members of the Metropolitan Police Service.

From Time ● Mar. 28, 2012

After breakfast, I’m in the valley pasturing sheep under a sky the dull gray of cow intestines, when Hermelinda appears on the hill.

From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau

Related Words

• grass
• grazing
• meadow