[əʊt], (Noun)

Definitions:
- an Old World cereal plant with a loose, branched cluster of florets, cultivated in cool climates and widely used for animal feed

- an oat stem used as a musical pipe by shepherds, especially in pastoral or bucolic poetry


Phrases:
- feel one's oats
- get one's oats
- sow one's wild oats

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