oat

Etymology

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

noun

1. (uncountable) Widely cultivated cereal grass, typically Avena sativa.
   The oat stalks made good straw.
   The main forms of oat are meal and bran.
   World trade in oat is increasing.
2. (countable) 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. (usually as plural) The seeds of the oat, a grain, harvested as a food crop.
   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, page 2
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! 1994, Susan King, The Black Thorne's Rose, page 21