paternoster

noun

1. The Lord's Prayer, especially in a Roman Catholic context.

   “The friar had said his paternosters duly”

2. A slow, continuously moving lift or elevator consisting of a loop of open-fronted cabins running the height of a building.
3. A bead-like ornament in mouldings.
4. 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 paternoster is any style of hook rig where the hook(s) are on droppers above a fixed sinker. One or two hooks are used on a paternoster rig. The droppers are tied using dropper loops tied directly in the line. The twisted dropper is an ideal knot as it stands out at right angles to the line.”

   “In plain terms, the paternoster is a rig with the weight at the bottom and hook traces (sometimes called snoods by sea anglers) attached above in fixed positions. Besides a tidy presentation, this arrangement allows the sea angler to try more than one bait and you'll often find paternosters with two hooks (or even three or four). Effectively this allows us to hedge our bets and try more baits (which could be the same or different types), thereby increasing the scent and attraction.”

   “PATERNOSTER TWIN This rig is slightly more complicated than the single paternoster, however this rig has the added advantage of having two hooks, these can be different sizes and be baited with different baits.”

5. (archaic)A string of beads used in counting prayers that are said.
6. (archaic)Every eleventh bead in a rosary, at which, while counting the beads, the Lord's Prayer is to be repeated.

   “Holonyms: rosary; prayer beads”

7. (archaic)A medieval artisan who crafted rosary beads or prayer nuts.
8. (archaic)A patent medicine, so named because salesmen would pray the Lord's Prayer over it before selling it.

   “Near-synonyms: nostrum, nostrum remedium”

verb

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

name

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of paternoster (“Lord's Prayer”).

   “If Burd Ellen had gone “widishins" round the church, she would, I think, have used the best homoeopathic specific against the Elf-King's power; for "to go widishins" was the chief element in elfin practices, and if mortals wished to resist or unspell elf-craft, they, too, had "to go widershins," or they had to repeat the Paternoster backwards, which came to the same thing, or do something else contrariwise.”

2. A surname.