Oat

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əʊt/

Definitions

1. A cereal grain with edible seeds commonly used to make porridge, flour, or animal feed, or the plant that produces this grain
2. A type of cereal plant valued for its nutritional seeds used in food products and livestock feed, as well as the whole grain itself that may be processed into various forms
3. This is a grain-producing plant known for its seeds that are rich in fiber and often utilized in health foods, as well as the processed products derived from it

Etymology: The grain's name is older than the grain's cultivation in many places, and its ancestry points somewhere unpleasant. The Proto-Germanic root behind "oat" meant "swelling" or "gland," and the same root produced words for nodules, abscesses and pus. Old English "āte" likely began as a word for a swollen or lumpy thing before it was attached to a cereal, and the plant may have taken its name from the appearance of its grains or from a sense of coarseness or wildness. The connection to poison is a real one, though it runs through the same root rather than through the grain. English "atter," meaning poison, belongs to this family of swelling words, as do Old Norse "eitill" (nodule) and German "Eiter" (pus). Scholars link them all to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to swell," which also gave Greek "oidéō" and Latin "aemidus," both meaning swollen.

Synonyms: grain, cereal, crop, food