Pertaining to a herdsman or shepherd, or to flocks or herds; rustic; rural: as, a pastoral life; pastoral manners.Descriptive of the life of shepherds; treating of rustic life: as, a pastoral poem.Of or pertaining to a pastor or his office, dignity, duties, etc.; relating to the cure of souls: as, the pastoral care of a church; a pastoral visit; pastoral work.In churches of the Presbyterian and Congregational orders, the address of counsel made by a clergyman to a pastor on his ordination or installation.Synonyms and Rustic, Bucolic, etc. See rural.n. A poem describing the life and manners of shepherds, or a poem in which the characters are shepherds or shepherdesses; in general, any poem the subject of which is the country or a country life; a bucolic.n. Any work of art of which the subject is rural.n. In music, same as pastorale.n. A pastoral letter or address.n. A shepherd; also, a swineherd.n. A treatise on the duties of a pastor.