Chapter Patellar to Patient of P by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

1. The relation of a father to his child; fathership; fatherhood; family headship; as, the divine paternity.

The world, while it had scarcity of people, underwent no other dominion than paternity and eldership.

Sir W. Raleigh.

2. Derivation or descent from a father; male parentage; as, the paternity of a child.

3. Origin; authorship.

The paternity of these novels was . . . disputed.

Sir W. Scott.

Paternoster
(Pa"ter*nos`ter) n. [L., Our Father.]

1. The Lord's prayer, so called from the first two words of the Latin version.

2. (Arch.) A beadlike ornament in moldings.

3. (Angling) A line with a row of hooks and beadshaped sinkers.

Paternoster pump, Paternoster wheel, a chain pump; a noria. — Paternoster while, the space of time required for repeating a paternoster. Udall.

Path
(Path) n.; pl. Paths [As. pæð, pað; akin to D. pad, G. pfad, of uncertain origin; cf. Gr. pa`tos, Skr. patha, path. &radic21.]

1. A trodden way; a footway.

The dewy paths of meadows we will tread.

Dryden.

2. A way, course, or track, in which anything moves or has moved; route; passage; an established way; as, the path of a meteor, of a caravan, of a storm, of a pestilence. Also used figuratively, of a course of life or action.

All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.

Ps. xxv. 10.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Gray.

Path
(Path) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pathed (pa&thligd); pr.p. & vb. n. Pathing.] To make a path in, or on or for [R.] "Pathing young Henry's unadvised ways." Drayton.

Path
(Path), v. i. To walk or go. [R.] Shak.

Pathematic
(Path`e*mat"ic) a. [Gr. fr. a suffering, to suffer.] Of, pertaining to, or designating, emotion or suffering. [R.] Chalmers.

Pathetic
(Pa*thet"ic) a. [L. patheticus, Gr. fr. to suffer: cf. F. pathétique. See Pathos.]

1. Expressing or showing anger; passionate. [Obs.]

2. Affecting or moving the tender emotions, esp. pity or grief; full of pathos; as, a pathetic song or story. "Pathetic action." Macaulay.

No theory of the passions can teach a man to be pathetic.

E. Porter.

Pathetic muscle (Anat.), the superior oblique muscle of the eye. — Pathetic nerve (Anat.), the fourth cranial, or trochlear, nerve, which supplies the superior oblique, or pathetic, muscle of the eye. — The pathetic, a style or manner adapted to arouse the tender emotions.