oat

noun

Etymology: Inherited from Middle English ote, from Old English āte, from Proto-West Germanic *aitā, from Proto-Germanic *aitǭ (“swelling; gland; nodule”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eyd- (“to swell”). See English atter (“poison”). Cognates * Germanic: cognate with Scots ait (“oat”), West Frisian oat (“wild oat”), Dutch oot, aat (“wild oat”), Saterland Frisian Aate (“pea”), German Low German Aat (“oat”), obsolete Luxembourgish Otz (“oat”). Further related to Icelandic eitill (“nodule”), Norwegian Bokmål eitel (“knot, gland”), Norwegian Nynorsk eitel (“knot, gland”), Old High German eiz (“abscess”) (German Eiter (“pus”), Eiß (“ulcer”)), Dutch etter (“pus”), Saterland Frisian eitel (“fast, raging”), Old Norse eitill (“nodule”) * Indo-European: Latin aemidus (“swollen, protuberant”), Old Church Slavonic ꙗдъ (jadŭ, “poison”), Ancient Greek οἰδέω (oidéō, “to swell”), Albanian ënjt (“to swell, inflame”), Old Armenian այտնում (aytnum, “to swell”), այտ (ayt, “cheek”), Sanskrit इन्दु (índu, “water drop”)

1. Widely cultivated cereal grass, typically Avena sativa.

   “The oat stalks made good straw.”

   “The main forms of oat are meal and bran.”

2. 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.”

3. The seeds of the oat, a grain, harvested as a food crop and for animal feed.

   “[…]I could munch your good dry Oates. Me-thinkes I haue a great deſire to a bottle of hay: good hay, ſweete hay hath no fellow.”

   “The point is, except in Scotland, people eat comparatively few oats. Scotland's another story, though you'll have to decide how seriously to take it. The way the story goes is that in eastern Scotland, the unmarried plowmen didn't eat anything but oats and milk, except for an occasional potato.”

4. A simple musical pipe made of oat-straw.
5. The tiniest amount; a whit or jot.

   “Few of them care an oat for the niceties of the arrow sport, but for the young lords that may be on a hunt!”

prep_phrase

1. Alternative letter-case form of OAT.