pastors

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of pastor.

   The conference brought together pastors from across the region.

   Local pastors organized a food drive for struggling families.

   Note

   The plural is regular, but it gathers every noun sense of pastor at once: church ministers, the main priest of a parish in American usage, shepherds tending a flock in the archaic sense, and even the rosy starling, a bird. Context sorts them out. The same spelling is also the verb meaning "serves as pastor", so pastors after a singular subject is a verb, not a noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of pastor.

   She pastors a growing church on the edge of the city.

   He pastors the congregation his father once led.

   Note

   Here the noun has become a verb for holding the role itself. It works with or without an object: she pastors a church, or simply she pastors, meaning that is her calling. Because it names a standing position rather than a single act, the simple present suits it naturally, describing a lasting charge rather than one event. Read it beside the plural noun by what precedes it.

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