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 Patent Frenchman, subs. phr. (tailors').—An Irishman.

Patent-inside (or -outside), subs. phr. (journalistic).—A newspaper printed on the inside (or outside) only, the unprinted space being intended for local news, advertisements, &c.

Patent Safeties (The), subs. phr. (military).—The First Life Guards. Also "The Cheeses"; "The Piccadilly Butchers"; and "The Tin Bellies."

Pater-cove. See Patrico.

Paternoster, subs. (anglers').—A fishing-line with hooks and shot at regular intervals. [As beads on a rosary.]

1849. C. Kingsley, Yeast, iii. Here's that paternoster as you gave me to rig up.

Devil's Paternoster, subs. phr. (old).—A muttering or grumbling; a profane expletive.

1383. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (1856), 540. Grutche and murmure prively for veray despit; which wordes they call the divels Pater noster, though so be that the divel had never Pater noster but that lewed folke yeven it swiche a name.

1614. Terence in English [Nares]. What devills paternoster is this he is saying?

Ape's Paternoster. See Ape.

In a paternoster while, phr. (old).—Quickly; in a jiffey (q.v.). [While one could say a paternoster.]

1362. Langland, Piers Plowman, 3169. He pissed a potel In a paternoster while.

1422-1509. Paston Letters, i. 74. All don in a paternoster wyle.

1597. Langham, Garden of Health [Smythe-Palmer]. [A direction to boil onions] while one may say three paternosters.

[?]. Farindon, Sermons [Jackson, iv. 241]. Indeed, there is nothing sooner said, we may do it in a Pater-noster-while.

Pathic, subs. (old).—A pederast; an ingle (q.v.): see Usher.

1603. Jonson, Sejanus, i. 2. The noted pathic of his time.

1748. Smollett, Roderick Random, li. His valet-de-chambre, who, it seems, had been the favourite pathic of his lord.

1750. Robertson, Poems, 56. Your pathick cannot boast an A—so fair as I.

Patience on a Monument, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A long-suffering person.

1892. Henley and Stevenson, Three Plays ['Beau Austin,' i. 2]. Dolly, I must insist on your eating a good breakfast: I cannot away with your pale cheeks and that Patience-on-a-Monument kind of look.

Patrico, subs. (Old Cant).—A vagabond, or unfrocked priest; a hedge-priest (q.v.): also patriarck-co, patricove, pattering-cove and pater-cove. [Suggested derivations are: (1) pater = father + cove = a man; cf. patriarck-co; (2) patter (or pattering) = talk + cove, i.e., a patterer or mutterer of paternosters = a priest.]—B. E. (c.1696); Grose (1785).

1536. Copland, Spyttel-hous [Farmer, Musa Pedestris (1896), 1]. Teare the patryng coue in the darkeman cace Docked the dell.

1565. Awdeley, Vacabondes [E. E. T. S. (1896), 6]. A patriarke-co doth make marriages untill death depart after this sort: when they come to a dead horse or any dead catell, then they shake hands, and so depart every one of them a severall way.

1567. Harman, Caveat [E. E. T. S. (1896), 89]. There was a proude patrico and a nosegent, He tooke his Iockam in his Famble, and a wappinge he went.

1610. Rowlands, Martin Markall, 40 (H. Club's Repr. 1874), s.v.