pater

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pa·ter

(pā′tər)

n. Chiefly British

Father.

[Latin; see pəter- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

pater

(ˈpeɪtə)

chiefly facetious Brit a public school slang word for father

[from Latin]

Pater

(ˈpeɪtə)

(Biography) Walter (Horatio). 1839–94, English essayist and critic, noted for his prose style and his advocation of the "love of art for its own sake". His works include the philosophical romance Marius the Epicurean (1885), Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873), and Imaginary Portraits (1887)

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

pa•ter

(ˈpeɪ tər; for 2,3 also ˈpæt ər)

n.

1. Brit. Informal. father.

2. (often cap.) paternoster.

[1300–50; Middle English < Latin: father]

Pa•ter

(ˈpeɪ tər)

n.

Walter Horatio, 1839–94, English critic and essayist.

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Noun

pater - an informal use of the Latin word for father; sometimes used by British schoolboys or used facetiously

begetter, father, male parent - a male parent (also used as a term of address to your father); "his father was born in Atlanta"

Translations

pater

(o.f.) [ˈpeɪtəʳ] N (esp Brit) the pater → el viejo

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

pater

n (dated Brit inf) → Herr Vater (dated)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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References in classic literature ?

"To Cours la Reine!" cried D'Artagnan to the coachman; then turning to Mazarin he said, "Now, my lord, you can say five paters and five aves, in thanks to Heaven for your deliverance.

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Doesn't Matthew Arnold say that somewhere--or is it Swinburne, or Pater?

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Don't you remember the chapter in Marius where Pater talks of the gentle exercise of walking as the best incentive to conversation?"

He formed a platonic friendship with a lady some years older than himself, who lived in Kensington Square; and nearly every afternoon he drank tea with her by the light of shaded candles, and talked of George Meredith and Walter Pater. It was notorious that any fool could pass the examinations of the Bar Council, and he pursued his studies in a dilatory fashion.

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You're bound to listen to me for what's the use of calling me 'pater,' and all that, if you don't mind what I say?

"I say, Flashey," sang out another of the big boys; "drop that; you heard what old Pater Brooke said to-night.

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"Upon my soul, I could say the Pater , and the Ave Maria , and the Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem without her paying any more attention to me than a chicken to a church."

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(That's a sort of gum-poison, pater, which attacks the nerve centres.

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The Prior of Jorvaulx crossed himself and repeated a pater noster, in which all devoutly joined, excepting the Jew, the Mahomedans, and the Templar; the latter of whom, without vailing his bonnet, or testifying any reverence for the alleged sanctity of the relic, took from his neck a gold chain, which he flung on the board, saying ``Let Prior Aymer hold my pledge and that of this nameless vagrant, in token that when the Knight of Ivanhoe comes within the four seas of Britain, he underlies the challenge of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, which, if he answer not, I will proclaim him as a coward on the walls of every Temple Court in Europe.''

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Item, that upon brother Ambrose reproving him for this blasphemous wish, he did hold the said brother face downwards over the piscatorium or fish-pond for a space during which the said brother was able to repeat a pater and four aves for the better fortifying of his soul against impending death."

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Walter Pater (1839-1894), an Oxford Fellow, also represents distinctly the spirit of unworldliness, which in his case led to a personal aloofness from active life.

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"Well," said he, "I will take the sin on my own head, favor me with one simple Christian sign of the cross, favor me with one pater, and we will part."