oaten, a. (n.)
(ˈəʊt(ə)n)
[f. oat n. + -en4. In first quot. perh. the gen. pl. of oat = OE. átena.]
1. Composed of the grain of oats, or of oatmeal.
| c 1420 Liber Cocorum (1862) 47 Take porke, wele þou hit sethe With otene grotes. 1523 Ld. Berners Froiss. I. xviii. 24 They lacked oten meale to make cakes withall. 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 537 They did eate..oten bread. 1832 Veg. Subst. Food 72 Oaten cakes..are much used in Lancashire. |
2. Made of the straw or stem of an oat.
| 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Jan. 72 [He] broke his oaten pype. 1589 Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 52 Tune on my pipe the praises of my Loue, And midst thy oaten harmonie recount How faire she is. 1637 Milton Lycidas 32 The Rural ditties..Temper'd to th' Oaten Flute. 1746 Collins Ode Evening 1 Aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song. 1809 W. Irving Knickerb. ii. iv. (1849) 101 Oh! sweet Theocritus! had I thine oaten reed. |
3. Of or belonging to the oat as a plant. oaten hay: see quot. 1899.
| 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. v. ii. 913 When Shepheards pipe on Oaten strawes. 1601 Holland Pliny I. 146 Drawing it in with an oaten straw. 1891 E. Kinglake Australian at H. 141 The farmers grow their maize and their oaten hay and sell it, and are comfortably off. 1899 Daily News 30 June 5/3 There has recently been some demand in Australia for ‘oaten hay’, for English race horses. Oaten hay, or as it is called in Cape Colony ‘oat hay’..consists of oat sheaves with the oats not thrashed out of them. |
† 4. Abounding in oats; oat-producing. rare.
| 1640 Parkinson Theat. Bot. 958 The Oaten land or Muske Thistle. c 1648–50 R. Brathwait Barnabees Jrnl. iv. K j, Thence to oaten Ouston fruitfull. |
B. n. An oaten pipe: see 2 above.
| 1825 New Monthly Mag. XIV. ii. 469 Which, when as the oaten spoke, From their green dreams aye awoke. |