oat

 
Pronunciation: /əʊt/

noun

  • 1an Old World cereal plant with a loose, branched cluster of florets, cultivated in cool climates and widely used for animal feed.
    • Avena sativa, family Gramineae
  • (oats) the grain yielded by the oat plant, used as food: oats are great health value [with modifier]: porridge oats
  • used in names of wild grasses related to the cultivated oat, e.g. wild oat.
  • 2 literary an oat stem used as a musical pipe by shepherds, especially in pastoral or bucolic poetry.

Phrases

feel one's oats

North American informal feel lively and energetic: she’s in the pink and feeling her oats

get one's oats

British informal have sexual intercourse.

sow one's wild oats

go through a period of wild or promiscuous behaviour while young: he sowed his wild oats before settling down

Derivatives

oaten

adjective ( archaic)

oaty

adjective (oatier, oatiest)

Origin:

Old English āte, plural ātan, of unknown origin. Unlike other names of cereals (such as wheat, barley, etc.), oat is not a mass noun and may originally have denoted the individual grain, which may imply that oats were eaten in grains and not as meal