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Wild oats   /waɪld oʊts/   Listen
noun
Oat  n.  (pl. oats)  
1.
(Bot.) A well-known cereal grass (Avena sativa), and its edible grain, used as food and fodder; commonly used in the plural and in a collective sense.
2.
A musical pipe made of oat straw. (Obs.)
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 (Zool.), 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, Danthonia sericea, and Arrhenatherum avenaceum, all common in parts of the United States.
To feel one's oats,
(a)
to be conceited or self-important. (Slang)
(b)
to feel lively and energetic.
To sow one's wild oats, to indulge in youthful dissipation.
Wild oats (Bot.), a grass (Avena fatua) much resembling oats, and by some persons supposed to be the original of cultivated oats.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Wild oats" Quotes from Famous Books



... land guiltless of a furrow; He saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill; He saw the gopher working in his burrow; He saw the squirrel scampering at his will:— He saw all this, and felt no doubt a thorough And deep conviction of God's goodness; still He failed to see that in His glory He Yet left the humblest ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... is,' continued Mrs. Montgomery Floyd. 'The truth is, Captain Armine has been wild, very wild indeed; a little of a roue; but then such a fine young man, so very handsome, so truly distinguished, as Lady Bellair says, what could you expect? But he has sown his wild oats now. They have been engaged these six months; ever since he came from abroad. He has been at Bath all the time, except for a fortnight or so, when he went to his Place to make the necessary preparations. We all so missed him. Captain Armine was quite the life of Bath I am almost ashamed to repeat ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... around Renee, and near to her, there seemed to be a great living peace, in which everything was being swayed—the gnat in the air, the leaf on the branch, the shadows on the bark of the trees, the tops of the trees against the sky, and the wild oats on each side of the paths. Then from this murmur came the sighing sound of a deep respiration, a breeze coming from afar which made the trees tremble as it passed them, while the blue of the heavenly vault above the shaking leaves seemed fixed and immovable. The boughs swayed slowly up ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... before we go to bed. You know I'm not squeamish about these things. I know that a lad of twenty is made of flesh and blood just as a man of thirty or forty is, and although I consider what is called sowing wild oats foolish as well as a most ungentlemanly pastime, still, I equally don't believe in the innocence of ignorance, at least ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... or lung diseases, which to us appear to be beyond the control of the individual. They are only more lenient towards the diseases of the young—such as measles, which they think to be like sowing one's wild oats—and look over them as pardonable indiscretions if they have not been too serious, and if they are atoned ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... sown his wild oats at his age puts himself out of court. He has no pluck; he puts money ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... be young men, and sow their wild oats; and think to myself that the invasion of his mamma will be perhaps more surprising than pleasant to young Sir Thomas Kicklebury, and that she possibly talks about herself and her family, and her virtues and her daughters, a little too much: but she WILL make a ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray


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