From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishoatsoats /əʊts $ oʊts/ noun [plural] DFthe grain from which flour or oatmeal is made and that is used in cooking, or in food for animals → sow your wild oats at sow1(3)
Examples from the Corpus
oats• Wheat and rye and barley and oats ripened in the sun.• Besides wheat, the program will aid growers of crops like oats or barley who use their land for grazing.• She dressed her makeshift altar with a necklace of twisted corn, two jam-jars stuffed with bouquets of oats and barley.• The pigeons, puffed, sullen, full of oats and spring thoughts, kept their distance.• If you can not get oat or rice bran, try substituting rolled oats.• As invaders from the United States began to rove the valley, they helped complete the oats conquest.• The oats price is weaker than that for wheat, reflecting the current poor market for oats generally.• Not particularly appetizing, but not necessarily enough to put you off your oats, either.Origin oats Old English ate (singular) 