oatmeal
Americannoun
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meal made from ground or rolled oats.
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a cooked breakfast food made from this.
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a grayish-fawn color.
adjective
noun
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meal ground from oats, used for making porridge, oatcakes, etc
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a greyish-yellow colour
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( as adjective )
an oatmeal coat
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Etymology
Origin of oatmeal
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at oat, meal 2
Explanation
Use the word oatmeal for ground, crushed, or cut oats — or to mean the hot cereal made from cooking these processed oats. You might prefer your oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins. Oatmeal is a porridge or hot cereal, a tasty breakfast especially in the winter months. It's also the name of the meal that you need to boil in water or milk to make a bowl of oatmeal. As well as the breakfast dish, you can make things like bread, cookies, and pancakes with oatmeal. In Scotland, oatmeal has long been the major grain, and as a result oatmeal is an ingredient in many traditional foods, from gruel and oatcakes to haggis.
Vocabulary lists containing oatmeal
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
There is also a speciality porridge competition, where competitors can combine oatmeal with any ingredients they choose, resulting in an imaginative mix of sweet and savoury dishes.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
“It’s cranberry, oatmeal and gluten-free. Who knows if there’s any sugar in there?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
“Nothing compared to this,” Lanier said, reflecting on the attention to the trial, over oatmeal, toast and a Coke Zero in a downtown Los Angeles hotel the morning after the victory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 28, 2026
Even oatmeal, where it melts in and makes the whole bowl feel a little more grounded, a little more complete.
From Salon ● Mar. 25, 2026
When they sit down to eat, James and Richard are silent for a while as they shovel oatmeal into their mouths.
From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
