Oat

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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.
        [1913 Webster]


  
     2. A musical pipe made of oat straw. [Obs.] --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {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.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  oat
       n 1: annual grass of Europe and North Africa; grains used as food
            and fodder (referred to primarily in the plural: `oats')
       2: seed of the annual grass Avena sativa (spoken of primarily
          in the plural as `oats')