Oats . n.s. [aten, Saxon.] A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

It is of the grass leaved tribe; the flowers have no petals, and are disposed in a loose panicle: the grain is eatable. The meal makes tolerable good bread. Miller.

The oats have eaten the horses. Shakespeare.

It is bare mechanism, no otherwise produced than the turning of a wild oatbeard, by the insinuation of the particles of moisture. Locke.

For your lean cattle, fodder them with barley straw first, and the oat straw last. Mortimer's Husbandry.