Definition

1. Noun:

   • Land covered with grass and other low plants suitable for grazing animals: An area of land, often enclosed, where livestock such as cattle, sheep, or horses can feed on growing grass.
   • The grass or herbage growing on such land: The plants themselves that animals eat while grazing.

2. Verb:

   • To put (animals) out to graze in a pasture: To allow livestock to feed on the grass in a field.
   • (Of animals) To graze on a pasture: To eat grass or herbage in such an area.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:

  • The cows were led to the lush pasture.
  • This land is used as pasture for sheep.

• Verb:

  • The farmer pastures his herd in the south field every summer.
  • The horses are pasturing peacefully on the hillside.

Advanced Usage

• "To put someone out to pasture": An idiom meaning to force someone to retire, especially because they are old or no longer effective. It originates from the practice of putting old workhorses out to graze instead of working.

  • After forty years with the company, they finally put him out to pasture.

• "Pasture land": Land used or suitable for grazing livestock.

  • The valley contains acres of valuable pasture land.

Variants and Related Words

• Pasturage (n): The activity or right of grazing livestock on pasture land; also, land used for grazing.
• Pastoral (adj): Relating to the countryside, especially in a romanticized way; relating to the keeping or grazing of sheep or cattle.
  • The painting depicted an idyllic pastoral scene.

Synonyms

• Noun: Grazing land, meadow, grassland, field, ley.
• Verb: Graze, feed, browse.

Related Phrases

• To pasture on/upon: To graze on a specific area or type of vegetation.
  • The deer pasture on the young shoots in spring.

Noun

1. bulky food like grass or hay for browsing or grazing horses or cattle
2. a field covered with grass or herbage and suitable for grazing by livestock

Verb

1. feed as in a meadow or pasture
   • the herd was grazing
2. let feed in a field or pasture or meadow