Oat definition

ōt
Any of various related grasses (genus Avena), esp. the wild oats.
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A musical pipe made of an oat straw.
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Any of various grasses of the genus Avena, especially A. sativa, widely cultivated for their edible grains.
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The grain of any of these plants, used as food and fodder.
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(obs.) A simple musical pipe made of an oat stalk.
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A hardy, widely grown cereal grass (Avena sativa)
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The edible grain of this grass.
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(uncountable) Widely cultivated cereal grass, typically Avena sativa.

The oat stalks made good straw.

The main forms of oat are meal and bran.

World trade in oat is increasing.

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(countable) Any of the numerous species, varieties, or cultivars of any of several similar grain plants in genus Avena.

The wild red oat is thought to be the ancestor of modern food oats.

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(usually as plural) The seeds of the oat, harvested as a food crop.
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(slang) feel one's oats
  • to be in high spirits; be frisky
  • to feel and act important
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Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
oat
Plural:
oats

Idioms and Phrasal Verbs

Origin of oat

  • Middle English ote from Old English āte

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Middle English ote, from Old English āte, from Proto-Germanic *aitÇ­ (“swelling"), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eid- (“to swell"). For sense development, compare Ancient Greek oídax 'unripe fig' from oîdos 'swelling, tumor'.

    From Wiktionary

Oat Sentence Examples

  • In the cultivated oat it may be wanting, and if present it is not so stiff and is seldom bent.

  • The oat crop was 10,886,000 bushels.

  • Parkinson tells us that in his time (early in the 17th century) the naked oat was sown in sundry places, but "nothing so frequent" as the common sort.

  • Besides the use of the straw when cut up and mixed with other food for fodder, the oat grain constitutes an important food for both man and beast.

  • In the last-named family the single morphological species Erysiphe graminis is found growing on the cereals, barley, oat, wheat, rye and a number of wild grasses (such as Poa, Bromus, Dactylis).

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Words near oat in the Dictionary