Young Brunette Girl With Long Hair Outside On The Meadow With A Hat

Especially in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the term meadow is commonly used in its original sense to mean a haymeadow; grassland cut annually for hay (Old English mædwe). "Pasture" is used in contrast for land which is primarily grazed, which may include grassland ("grass pasture"), but also includes non-grassland habitats such as heathland, moorland and wood pasture. "Grassland" is used to include both meadow and grass pasture.
Transitional meadows
A transitional meadow occurs when a field, pasture, farmland, or other cleared land is no longer farmed or heavily grazed and starts to overgrow. Once meadow conditions are achieved, however, the condition is only temporary because the early colonizers will be shaded out when woody plants become well-established.