Oater

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈoʊ.tɚ/

Definitions

1. A film or television production featuring cowboys, frontier life, or the American Old West, often characterized by action and adventure in a rural setting
2. A cinematic or television narrative that focuses on cowboys, rural adventures, or life in the American West, emphasizing themes of bravery and the wilderness
3. A genre of film and television that depicts stories about cowboys, rural life, and the challenges encountered in the American frontier, often highlighting heroism and conflict

Etymology: "Oater" is a slang noun for a Western film or television show, and its whole story is one of American humor. It was formed by adding the suffix "-er" to "oat", the cereal grain, with the joke being that horses, which the cowboys rode and which crowded frontier scenes, ate oats. The earliest uses are dated to around 1945-50, which places the coinage in the years when Hollywood Westerns were a staple of cinema programming. The formation is a classic piece of slang wordplay, closely related to "horse opera," a term for the same genre. Where "horse opera" pairs the animal with a grand theatrical form, "oater" reaches for something plainer: the feed that kept those animals working. It is a casual, slightly teasing word, the kind a film fan or trade writer might use without much ceremony.

Synonyms: western, cowboy film, horse opera