from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Oat \Oat\ ([=o]t), n.; pl. {Oats} ([=o]ts). [OE. ote, ate, AS.
[=a]ta, akin to Fries. oat. Of uncertain origin.]
1. (Bot.) A well-known cereal grass ({Avena sativa}), and its
edible grain, used as food and fodder; -- commonly used in
the plural and in a collective sense.
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2. A musical pipe made of oat straw. [Obs.] --Milton.
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{Animated oats} or {Animal oats} (Bot.), A grass ({Avena
sterilis}) much like oats, but with a long spirally
twisted awn which coils and uncoils with changes of
moisture, and thus gives the grains an apparently
automatic motion.
{Oat fowl} (Zool.), the snow bunting; -- so called from its
feeding on oats. [Prov. Eng.]
{Oat grass} (Bot.), the name of several grasses more or less
resembling oats, as {Danthonia spicata}, {Danthonia
sericea}, and {Arrhenatherum avenaceum}, all common in
parts of the United States.
{To feel one's oats},
(a) to be conceited or self-important. [Slang]
(b) to feel lively and energetic.
{To sow one's wild oats}, to indulge in youthful dissipation.
--Thackeray.
{Wild oats} (Bot.), a grass ({Avena fatua}) much resembling
oats, and by some persons supposed to be the original of
cultivated oats.
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