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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Oat \Oat\ ([=o]t), noun; pl. {Oats} ([=o]ts). [OE. ote, ate, AS. [=a]ta, akin to Fries. oat. Of uncertain origin.]
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.] --Milton.
{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} (Zo["o]l.), 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. --Thackeray.
{Wild oats} (Bot.), a grass ({Avena fatua}) much resembling oats, and by some persons supposed to be the original of cultivated oats.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
oat
noun
1: annual grass of Europe and North Africa; grains used as food and fodder (referred to primarily in the plural: 'oats')
2: seed of the annual grass Avena sativa (spoken of primarily in the plural as 'oats')
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