\Oat\ ([=o]t), n.; pl. {Oats} ([=o]ts). [OE. ote, ate, AS.
[=a]ta, akin to Fries. oat. Of uncertain origin.]
1. (Bot.) A well-known cereal grass ({Avena sativa}), and its
   edible grain; -- 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}, {D. sericea}, and
   {Arrhenatherum avenaceum}, all common in parts of the
   United States.
{To feel one's oats}, to be conceited ro self-important.
   [Slang]
{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.