paternoster

Meanings

Noun

• The Lord's prayer, especially in a Roman Catholic context.
• A slow, continuously moving lift or elevator consisting of a loop of open-fronted cabins running the height of a building.
• A bead-like ornament in mouldings.
• A tackle rig with a heavy sinker at the end of the line, and one or more hooks on traces at right angles spaced above the sinker.
• A string of beads used in counting prayers that are said; a rosary.
• Every eleventh bead in a rosary, at which, while counting the beads, the Lord's Prayer is to be repeated.
• A medieval artisan who crafted rosary beads or prayer nuts.
• A patent medicine, so named because salesmen would pray the Lord's Prayer over it before selling it.

Verb

• To try to catch (fish, etc.) with a paternoster rig.

Origin

• From Middle English paternoster, pater noster, from Old English pater noster, from Latin Pater noster ("our father") (the first two words of the Oratio Dominica), from pater + noster. The lift and the fishing equipment are named from their resemblance to a rosary.