Pasture
nounLand covered with grass and suitable for grazing livestock.
How to spell pasture
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce pasture
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does pasture mean?
- nounLand covered with grass and suitable for grazing livestock.
- verbTo put animals out to graze on grassland.
Pasture in a sentence
-
noun
The farmer moved the cattle to a fresh pasture each spring.
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verb
They pasture the horses on the hillside during summer.
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noun
A low fence kept the sheep within the upper pasture.
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verb
The cooperative agreed to pasture their goats on shared land.
Where does pasture come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word arrived in English in the 1300s from the Old French pasture, which in turn came from the Late Latin pastura, meaning 'a feeding' or 'grazing'. That noun was built on the Latin verb pascere, which literally meant 'to feed' or 'to lead animals to graze'. The same Latin root feeds a surprising family of English words, including 'pastor' (originally a shepherd who feeds his flock), 'repast' (a meal), and 'pasta'. The spelling kept the Latin 'st' cluster all the way through, and the slightly soft, almost 'ch' sounding 'tu' in the middle is the small trap, since writers may be tempted to spell what they hear rather than the regular 't'. Knowing it is cousin to 'pastor' helps anchor the unchanging 'past' beginning.
How the word is built
- pastur- (from Latin pascere: to feed, to graze)
- -e
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