pasture [ME] The word pasture comes via Old French from late Latin pastura ‘grazing’, from the verb pascere ‘to graze’. A clergyman is seen as the shepherd of his flock, and pastor [LME] is the Latin for ‘shepherd, feeder’. Late Middle English pastoral is from Latin pastoralis ‘relating to a shepherd’. Its use in literary, art, and musical contexts dates from the early 16th century.