feel (one's) oats

(redirected from feels their oats)

feel (one's) oats

1. To be very active and energetic. The dog must be feeling his oats, considering how he's running around the yard today.

2. To be aware of one's own power or importance. If you sassed the boss like that, you must be feeling your oats!

See also: feel, oat

feel one's oats

Fig. to be very lively. Careful with that horse. He's feeling his oats today. Mary was feeling her oats and decided to go out dancing.

See also: feel, oat

feel one's oats

1. Feel frisky or animated, as in School was out, and they were feeling their oats. This usage alludes to the behavior of a horse after having been fed. [Early 1800s]

2. Display self-importance, as in He was feeling his oats, bossing everyone around. [Mid-1800s]

See also: feel, oat

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

feel your oats

AMERICAN, INFORMAL

If you feel your oats, you are full of energy and excitement. This success has Ralph Raina, one of the area's most prominent businessmen, feeling his oats. Murphy is feeling his oats as a budding movie star.

See also: feel, oat

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

feel your oats

feel lively and buoyant. US informal

Oats are used as feed for horses, making them friskier and more energetic.

See also: feel, oat

feel (one's) oats

1. To be energetic and playful.

2. To act in a self-important manner.

See also: feel, oat

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

feel one's oats, to

To act frisky or lively. This saying, with its analogy to a horse that is lively after being fed, is American in origin and dates from the early nineteenth century. It appeared in print in Amos Lawrence’s Extracts from Diary and Correspondence (1833): “We both ‘feel our oats’ and our youth.”