Proposing a coherent and unified definition of permanent pastures in France is not easy in the detail neither from technical nor from administrative point of view. Starting from usual and specialised dictionaries, the definition of a “pasture” shows a certain blur between a general definition in which a pasture is for some  an area which biomass – fodder - is eaten by cattle directly (grazing) or indirectly (mown = “pâture de fauche”) and for others grassland. Thus even in common language, a certain logical mistake can be found while if grasslands undoubtedly are pastures – and at national level the dominant one —, reciprocally all pastures are not grassland.