oat — ODE · Shobdo

oat /əʊt

▸ noun

1 an 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 English informal
feel lively and energetic:

she's in the pink and feeling her oats.

get one's oats British English informal
have sex.

sow one's wild oats
engage in a period of wild or irresponsible behaviour while young, especially involving many casual sexual relationships:

he sowed his wild oats before settling down.

– DERIVATIVES

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.