Pastoralize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To convert land into pasture for grazing animals; to idealize or romanticize rural life and countryside settings; to adopt or promote a simple, rustic lifestyle associated with shepherds and farmers
2. Transforming terrain for use as grazing fields; portraying rural environments in an idealized manner; embracing or advocating the virtues of a countryside existence
3. Changing land use to support livestock feeding; depicting the countryside with an emphasis on its peacefulness and simplicity; living in or supporting a pastoral way of life linked to farming and shepherding

Etymology: "Pastoralize" is a plain formation: the adjective "pastoral" with the verbal suffix "-ize" added to it. "Pastoral" traces back through Latin "pastoralis" to "pastor," a shepherd, from "pascere," to feed or graze, so the word's core idea is literally the tending of flocks. The suffix "-ize," borrowed through Latin and Greek, turns an adjective into a verb meaning to make something into, or to act in the manner of, that thing. That two-step history explains the word's range. Its literal sense is the older one: to convert land into grazing ground for livestock. The figurative senses grew from there, so that to pastoralize a landscape, or a poem, is to render it in the idealized, peaceful style associated with shepherds and rural life. The word thus moves from a farmer's concrete task to a literary and cultural attitude without changing its underlying root.

Synonyms: ruralize, shepherd, cultivate, farm, ranch

Antonyms: urbanize, industrialize