Careful Words

oats (n.)

oats (v.)

  Joh. Mayor, in the first book of his "History of Scotland," contends much for the wholesomeness of oaten bread; it was objected to him, then living at Paris, that his countrymen fed on oats and base grain. . . . And yet Wecker out of Galen calls it horse-meat, and fitter juments than men to feed on.

Robert Burton (1576-1640): Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 1.