Oats growing in a field. Tall grasses under a blue, cloudless sky.
18 November 2022
Oat, or oats, as it is usually found in the plural, was famously defined in Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary as:
A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
The word comes to us from the Old English ate or æte. It has cognates in other West Germanic languages, oat in Frisian and oot in Dutch, but most Germanic languages use words from a different root for the grain. In Swedish and Danish it is havre, and in German it is hafer. English also has haver, found chiefly in northern England and Scots, areas once ruled or heavily influenced by the Danes, and that word is a borrowing from Old Norse.
The Old English ate appears mainly in glosses, but one non-glossed use is from the tenth-century medical and herbal text commonly known as Bald’s Leechbook. Here it is used in a recipe for a dressing to be used on infected wounds:
Lacna ða scearpan þus, genim beanmela oþþe ætena oððe beres oþþe swilces meluwes swa þe þince þæt hit onniman wille, do eced to & hunig, seoþ ætgædere & lege on & bind on þa saran stowa.
(Dress the wounds thusly, take bean-meal or oats or barley or such meals as you think that will receive it, add vinegar & honey, infuse together & lay on & bind on the sore spot.)
In addition to the cultivated grain, there is the wild oat, and that term also dates back to Old English, where it appears in glosses to translate the Latin lolium or zizania. These are wild grasses, considered to be weeds in most places, and in the same family, Poaceae, as the cultivated oat. One such use of the Old English wilde ata can be found as a gloss for zizania in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The Latin text is from c.700 C.E., and the interlinear Old English gloss was added in the tenth century. Here is the interlinear gloss from Matthew 13.30, part of the Parable of the Sower:
& in tid hripes ic willo cuoeða ðæm hrippemonnum geadriges ꝉ somniges ærist ða unwæstma ꝉ wilde ata & bindas ða bunda ꝉ byrðenno ꝉ sceafa to bernenne.
(& at harvest time I will tell the harvesters to first gather / collect the weeds / wild oats and bind the bundle / fasces / sheaves to be burned.)
Of course, the phrase wild oats is commonly seen today in the phrase to sow one’s wild oats. The phrase refers to engaging in the dissipation and excesses of youth. The phrase’s underlying metaphor is that of sowing useless wild grasses instead of grain for cultivation. It is recorded in Thomas Newton’s 1576 The Touchstone of Complexions in a passage about the adolescent brain:
Hereuppon doe wee vse a Prouerbiall similitude taken of the nature and conditions of yonge Calues, which in the Sprynge tyme of the yeare (in ye greene pastures, when theyr bellyes be ful) skippe and leape vp and downe, wantonlye and toyingly fysking and iumpynge, now this waye, nowe that waye, nowe rounde about, one whyle raysing themselues vppon the forefeete, an otherwhyle vpon the hynder Leggs: whose maners & fashyo[n]s, such yo[n]g youthes as in their daily order of lyfe do imitate and resemble, are sayde in latine vitulari, which is, to bee as wanton and toying as a yonge Calfe: or not to haue shedde all theyr Calues teeth: or that theyr Iawes ytche with Caluishe wantonnes:
The Booke of Wysedome (fathered and asscrybed vnto Salomon) sayth: Spuria vitulamina no[n] agent radices altas, nec stabile fundamentum collocabunt: Bastarde Slippes shal take no deepe rootes nor laye any fast foundation.
By these Phrases of speach, we meane that wilfull and vnruly age, which lacketh rypenes and discretion, and (as wee saye) hath not sowed all theyr wyeld Oates, but as yet remayne withoute eyther forcast or consideration of any thinge that may afterward turne them to benefite, playe the wanton yonkers, and wilfull Careawayes. Seyng therfore yt Adolescencie and youthful age consisteth in a constitucion of Hoat and moyst, & is fuller of bloud then anye other: it is to this place therefore namely and specially to be referred.
(Hereupon do we use a proverbial similitude taken from nature and the conditions of young calves, which in the springtime of the year (in the green pastures, when their bellies are full) skip and leap up and down, wantonly and toyingly fisking and jumping, now this way, now that way, now round about, some while raising themselves upon their forefeet, and others upon their hind legs; whose manners and fashions, such young youths in their daily order of life do imitate and resemble, as is said in the Latin vitulari, which is to be as wanton and toying as a young calf; or not to have shed their calves’ teeth: or that their jawes itch with calvish wantonness:
The Book of Wisdom (fathered and ascribed to Solomon) says Spuria vitulamina no[n] agent radices altas, nec stabile fundamentum collocabunt: bastard slips shall take no deep roots nor lay any fast foundation.
By these phrases of speech, we mean that willful and unruly age, which lacks ripeness and discretion, and (as we say) have not sowed all their wild oats, but as yet remain without either forecast or consideration of anything that may afterward turn them to benefit, play the wanton yonkers, and willful caraways. Seeing therefore that adolescence and youthful age consists in a constitution of hot and moist, & is fuller of blood than any other: it is a place therefore namely and specially to be referred.)
The noun phrase wild oat, meaning a dissolute youth, can be found a few decades earlier, however, indicating that sowing one’s wild oats is somewhat older than Newton’s text. From Thomas Becon’s 1543 A Pleasaunt Newe Nosegaye, complaining about the strange fashions of the kids today:
And what shall I saye of the manifold & straunge fasshions of the garmentes, that are vsed nowe a dayes? I thi[n]ke Satan studieth not so much to inuent newe fasshyons to bryng christen men into his snare, as the Taylours nowe a dayes are co[m]pelled to excogitate, inue[n]t & ymagyne diuersities of fasshyo[n]s for apparel, that they maye satisfy the foolyshe desyre of certayne lyghte braynes & wylde Otes, which are all togither gyuen to newe fanglenes.
The other common phrase relating to oats is to feel one’s oats. This one is more recent and American in origin, dating to the early nineteenth century. The underlying metaphor of a horse that becomes frisky after it has been fed. It appears as early as 5 May 1830 in the Rhode Island newspaper the Providence Patriot:
Tommy Chilton, M.C., begins to feel his oats. He lately introduced a resolution calling upon the President to assign causes for every removal which had been made under the present administration. This impertinent measure was treated as it deserved—19 voting for, and 123 against its consideration.
Sources:
Becon, Thomas. A Pleasaunt Newe Nosegaye Full of Many Godly and Swete Floures. London: Johan Mayler for Johan Gough, 1543, sig. E.ii.v–E.iii.r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Cockayne, Oswald, ed. Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, vol. 2 of 3. London: Longman, et al., 1865, 1.35, 84. London, British Library Royal MS 12.D.xvii. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Dictionary of Old English: A to I. University of Toronto, 2018, s.v. ate, æte, n.
Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Beth Rapp Young, Jack Lynch, William Dorner, Amy Larner Giroux, Carmen Faye Mathes, and Abigail Moreshead, eds. 2021. s.v. oats, n.
Newton, Thomas. The Touchstone of Complexions. London: Thomas Marsh, 1576, 98r–v. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2004, s.v. oat, n.; December 2011, wild oat, n.; March 2015, s.v., haver, n.2.
“Providence.” Providence Patriot Columbian Phoenix, 5 May 1830, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Skeat, Walter W., ed. The Gospel According to Saint Matthew in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, and Old Mercian Versions. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1887, 13.30, 113. London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D.iv. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Photo credit: W. Carter, 2016. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.