What is "oat"

Oat \Oat\ ([=o]t), n.; pl. Oats ([=o]ts). [OE. ote, ate, AS.

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.

2. A musical pipe made of oat straw. [Obs.] --Milton. 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 (Zo["o]l.), 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,

   1. to be conceited or self-important. [Slang]

   2. 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.

Old English ate (plural atan) "grain of the oat plant, wild oats," of uncertain origin, possibly from Old Norse eitill "nodule," denoting a single grain, of unknown origin. The English word has cognates in Frisian and some Dutch dialects. Famously defined by Johnson as, "A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."\n

\nThe usual Germanic name is derived from Proto-Germanic *khabran (cognates: Old Norse hafri, Dutch haver, source of haversack). Wild oats, "crop that one will regret sowing," is first attested 1560s, in reference to the folly of sowing these instead of good grain.That wilfull and vnruly age, which lacketh rypenes and discretion, and (as wee saye) hath not sowed all theyr wyeld Oates. [Thomas Newton, "Lemnie's Touchstone of complexions," 1576]\n

\n\n
\nFred Sanford: I still want to sow some wild oats!\n
Lamont Sanford: At your age, you don't have no wild oats, you got shredded wheat.\n

["Sanford and Son"]

n. 1 (context uncountable English) Widely cultivated cereal grass, typically ''Avena sativa''. 2 (context countable English) Any of the numerous species, varieties, or cultivars of any of several similar grain plants in genus ''Avena''. 3 (context usually as plural English) The seeds of the oat, harvested as a food crop.

1. n. 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')

The oat (Avena sativa), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed.

Oat (plural: oats) is a cereal grain crop.

Oat or Oats may also refer to:

• OATS, Open Source Assistive Technology Software, a source code repository
• Ohio Achievement Test (before 2010, the Ohio Achievement Assessment was known as the Ohio Achievement Test)
• Optometry Admission Test, the widely used test for admission to a school of optometry
• Organic anion transporter, an organic anion-transporting polypeptide (OATP)
• Oxford Aviation Training at the Oxford Aviation Academy (OAA)
• Overseas Adventure Travel, an arranger of group travels for people in the USA to visit other countries
• Organic acid technology in antifreeze (see antifreeze#Organic acid technology)
• Obligation assimilable du Trésor (French treasury bond)
• Oral anticoagulant therapy, treatment with orally administered anticoagulants
• Oral antibiotic therapy, treatment with orally administered antibiotics
• Oral appliance therapy, treatment with an oral appliance
• Ornithine aminotransferase, the enzyme that enables conversion of ornithine to proline
• Occluded Artery Trial, a particular clinical trial (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00004562)
• Operational acceptance testing, testing that shows that a product or service is ready to accept for operation
• Operational air traffic, in air traffic control
• Outside air temperature, the air temperature outside a vehicle or building (usually in reference to an aircraft)