oat
UK/ˈəʊt//ˈoʊ̯t/
oat noun: widely cultivated cereal grass, typically Avena sativa. Also the alternative letter-case form of OAT.
Noun
oat (countable and uncountable, plural oats)
- Widely cultivated cereal grass, typically Avena sativa.
- The oat stalks made good straw.
- The main forms of oat are meal and bran.
- 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.
- 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.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
- 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.1991, Cornelia M. Parkinson, Cooking with Oats: Oat Bran, Oatmeal, and More, Storey Publishing, →ISBN, page 2
- A simple musical pipe made of oat-straw.
- 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!1994, Susan King, The Black Thorne's Rose, page 21
Prepositional phrase capitalized: OAT
- Initialism of of all time.
Also used as
oat is also the alternative letter-case form of OAT.
oat meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
oat in Hindi
- widely cultivated cereal grass
- जई jaī
oat in Tamil
- widely cultivated cereal grass
- காடைக்கண்ணி kāṭaikkaṇṇi
oat in Urdu
- widely cultivated cereal grass
- جئی jaī
oat in Bengali
- widely cultivated cereal grass
- জই joi
More languagesFewer languages
- oat in Punjabi
- ਜਵੀ javī
- oat in Tagalog
- abena, obena
- oat in Arabic
- شُوفَان šūfān, خَرْطَال ḵarṭāl
- oat in Malay
- oat, haver
- oat in Persian
- یولاف yulâf, شوفان šufân, جو دوسر jov-e dosar
- oat in Thai
- ข้าวโอ๊ต kâao-óot, โอ๊ต óot
- oat in Vietnamese
- yến mạch
- oat in Myanmar
- မြင်းစားဂျုံ mrang:ca:gyum
Examples of oat in a sentence
- It was a good crop of oats this year. What a nice change after last year's crop!
- The challah is more than half oat flour by weight, so it's ready for hamotzi tonight!
- She stirred up a mixture of oats, barley, cheese, and Pramnian wine.
Forms of oat
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | oats |
| Prepositional phrase | |
| alternative form | oat |
Origin of oat
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”)
Words formed from oat
- animated oat
- black oat
- black oat grass
- common wild oat
- feel one's oats
- naked oat
- oatbread
- oat-burner
- oat burner
- oatcake
- oat cell
- oaten
- oater
- oatflake
- oat grass
- oatgrass
- oatie
- oatlage
- oatless
- oat-like
- oatlike
- oatmeal
- oat milk
- oat opera
- oat soda
- oatstraw
- oaty
- off one's oats
- Polish oat
- potato oat
- proats
- rolled oats
- sow one's oats
- sow one's wild oats
- sow wild oats
- sterile oat
- wild oat
- wild oats
- wild red oat
Phrases with oat
Words that rhyme with oat
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- quote
- connote
- groat
- remote
- scrote
- tote
- bote
- capote
- denote
- devote
- dote
- mote
- smote
- solar boat
- undercoat
- cote
- demote
- gloat
- pote
- refloat
- rote
- undernote
- wrote
- yote
- blót
- confidence vote
- disease boat
- end of quote
- end quote
- entrecôte
- flote
- frote
- ignote
- isot
- lote
- loth
- misquote
- moth
- phot
- recoat
- rewrote
- shoat
- stoat
- swagger coat
- troat
- two hundred fifty-sixth note
- underquote
- underwrote
Questions about oat
- What does oat mean?
- Oat means widely cultivated cereal grass, typically Avena sativa.
- What is oat in Hindi?
- Oat in Hindi is जई (jaī). See Oat meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is oat?
- Oat can be a noun or a prepositional phrase.
- How do you pronounce oat?
- Oat is pronounced /ˈəʊt/ (UK).
- What is the plural of oat?
- The plural of oat is oats.
Words near oat in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: oat (page history and authors); OAT (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-oat.ogg.
Cite this entry: “oat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.