pasture

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pasture,^[2][3] partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman pasture (“pastureland, animal feed”), also pastour, and Middle French pasture,^[4][5] recorded in Old French from the 12th century and now modern French pâture,^[4][6][7] and partly borrowed from Late Latin pāstūra (“a feeding, grazing; a place for grazing”).^[4][8][6][9] The Latin noun is formed on Latin pāstus (“fed”), the past participle of pāscō (“to feed, graze”), with the suffix -ūra.^{[4][6][7][10]} The same word gave Spanish pastura and Italian pastura.^[4] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *pa- (“to feed”).^[6] The verb is inherited from Middle English pasturen,^[11][6] borrowed from Anglo-Norman pasturer (“to feed flocks, to graze”), from the French noun,^[4][6][7] with Medieval Latin pastūrāre beside it.^[11][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A piece of grassy land for grazing: the OED's first record, from before 1300, is in a place name in the East Riding of Yorkshire.^[4] Barnhart also finds the Anglo-Latin form pastura in Kyng Alisaunder and the place name Oxpasture before 1300,^[8] and Etymonline dates both "grassland" and "grass eaten by cattle" to about 1300.^[6] In Anglo-Norman the word is recorded from the early 12th century, for pastureland, the right to graze animals on another's land, and food.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word covered both the land and what grew on it, and also feeding in general: "food, sustenance" is recorded from Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus (before 1398) and "the action of grazing" from Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale (c. 1390).^[4] Religious writers used it for spiritual nourishment and for heaven as a place of such nourishment, senses that died out by 1500 and 1712.^[4] Johnson (1755) still put "food; the act of feeding" first, before "ground on which cattle feed", and added a third sense, "human culture; education", from Dryden.^[12] A figurative "field of activity" sense appears in 1579,^[4] and the phrase pastures new goes back to the line "Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new" in Milton's Lycidas.^[13][4] From 1657 an old horse was put out to pasture when its working life ended,^[4][6] and the phrase was used from 1868 of retiring people or dropping things;^[4] Etymonline dates the figurative "retired" to 1945.^[6] The verb, from before 1393 in Gower, first meant "to graze" and soon "to put animals out to graze".^[4][8][6] In Cumberland dialect pasture was the name of the open commons and of the land later enclosed from them, and north Yorkshire had Paster-day, 13 May.^[14]

Timeline

• before 1300 – a piece of grassy land for grazing, in a Yorkshire place name.^[4][8] Etymonline dates it c. 1300.^[6]
• c. 1350 – spiritual nourishment (obsolete by 1500).^[4]
• c. 1384 – a place of spiritual nourishment, heaven, in the early Wycliffite Bible (obsolete by 1712).^[4]
• c. 1390 – the action of grazing, in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale.^[4]
• before 1393 – verb, to graze, in Gower's Confessio Amantis.^[4][8]
• before 1398 – food, sustenance; the feeding or tending of animals.^[4]
• before 1400 – grass or other plants for grazing animals to eat, in the Cursor Mundi.^[4]
• c. 1400 – verb, to put livestock out to graze.^[4][6]
• 1434 – verb, to use land as grassland rather than for crops.^[4]
• 1486 – at pasture, grazing.^[4]
• 1579 – a field of thought or activity.^[4]
• 1657 – put out to pasture, of an animal.^[4]
• 1868 – figurative, to retire a person or stop using a thing.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Land covered with grass or other plants that is used or fit for grazing livestock; a field of such land: The cows were moved to the lower pasture for the summer.^[15][10][4]
2. The grass and other plants growing on such land, eaten by grazing animals.^[15][10][4]
3. A field of activity or interest, especially in pastures new, a new place or occupation.^[4][13]
4. put out to pasture: to let an old animal stop working and graze; figuratively, to retire a person or stop using a thing.^[4][6]
5. (archaic) Food, nourishment.^[10][4][12]
6. (obsolete, 1390–1425) The action of feeding or grazing.^[4][12]

Verb

1. Of animals, to feed on growing grass; to graze.^[15][10][4]
2. To put livestock out to graze: They pastured the sheep on the hill.^[15][10][4]
3. Of livestock, to graze land; also, to use land as pasture.^[15][4][7]

Word family

• pasturable
• pasturer
• pastural
• pastureless
• pastureland

Related words

• pastor
• pastoral
• pasturage
• pastern
• repast
• food

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
12. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins