PASTURE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does pasture mean? 

• PASTURE (noun)
  The noun PASTURE has 2 senses:

1. a field covered with grass or herbage and suitable for grazing by livestock

2. bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle

  Familiarity information: PASTURE used as a noun is rare.

• PASTURE (verb)
  The verb PASTURE has 2 senses:

1. let feed in a field or pasture or meadow

2. feed as in a meadow or pasture

  Familiarity information: PASTURE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PASTURE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A field covered with grass or herbage and suitable for grazing by livestock

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

grazing land; lea; ley; pasture; pastureland

Hypernyms ("pasture" is a kind of...):

grassland (land where grass or grasslike vegetation grows and is the dominant form of plant life)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pasture"):

common land; commons (a pasture subject to common use)

cow pasture (a pasture for cows)

Holonyms ("pasture" is a part of...):

country; rural area (an area outside of cities and towns)

Derivation:

pasture (feed as in a meadow or pasture)

pasture (let feed in a field or pasture or meadow)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Synonyms:

eatage; forage; grass; pasturage; pasture

Hypernyms ("pasture" is a kind of...):

fodder (coarse food (especially for livestock) composed of entire plants or the leaves and stalks of a cereal crop)

Derivation:

pasture (feed as in a meadow or pasture)

pasture (let feed in a field or pasture or meadow)

• PASTURE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they pasture    ... he / she / it pastures   
Past simple: pastured   
Past participle: pastured   
-ing form: pasturing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Let feed in a field or pasture or meadow

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

crop; graze; pasture

Hypernyms (to "pasture" is one way to...):

feed; give (give food to)

Verb group:

browse; crop; graze; pasture; range (feed as in a meadow or pasture)

Domain category:

animal; animate being; beast; brute; creature; fauna (a living organism characterized by voluntary movement)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "pasture"):

grass (feed with grass)

drift (drive slowly and far afield for grazing)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They pasture the animals

Derivation:

pasturage; pasture (bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle)

pasture (a field covered with grass or herbage and suitable for grazing by livestock)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Feed as in a meadow or pasture

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

browse; crop; graze; pasture; range

Context example:

the herd was grazing

Hypernyms (to "pasture" is one way to...):

eat; feed (take in food; used of animals only)

Verb group:

range (let eat)

crop; graze; pasture (let feed in a field or pasture or meadow)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sentence example:

The animals pasture

Derivation:

pasturage; pasture (bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle)

pasture (a field covered with grass or herbage and suitable for grazing by livestock)

 Context examples 

In the near distance, in contrast with the young-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tan and gold; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The cow-herd said: “All right,” and took it in his arms and carried it to the pasture, and set it among the grass.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

We well know that through it corn-land has been turned into pasture, so that flocks of sheep with perchance a single shepherd wander now where once a hundred men had work and wage.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a pleasant fertile spot, well wooded, and rich in pasture.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

It might be safely viewed with all its appendages of prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Above these, were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually blending with the crowning snow.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There were great stables, where a dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants’ cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

We found that, all other things being equal, the conversion of forests to crops and pastures leads to a two-to-four fold increase in the occurrence of hot, dry summers in these altered regions, said lead author Kirsten L. Findell, a climate scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL).

(Forests minimize severe heat waves, NOAA)

When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)