oatmeal

American  

[oht-meel, -meel] / ˈoʊtˌmil, -ˈmil /

noun

1. meal made from ground or rolled oats.

2. a cooked breakfast food made from this.

3. a grayish-fawn color.

---

adjective

1. made with or containing oatmeal.

   oatmeal cookies.

oatmeal British  

/ ˈəʊtˌmiːl /

noun

1. meal ground from oats, used for making porridge, oatcakes, etc

2. 1. a greyish-yellow colour

   2. ( as adjective )

      an oatmeal coat

---

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.

Example Sentences

As Boy Scouts, the twins learned to survive in the wilderness, or at least subsist on oatmeal for two days as they did once after running out of other food.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 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

In a separate six week phase, participants ate 80 grams of oatmeal per day without additional dietary limits.

From Science Daily • Feb. 25, 2026

The six week oatmeal group underwent identical testing procedures.

From Science Daily • Feb. 25, 2026

Bryson chewed his lumpy oatmeal slowly, choked it down, replaying the scene.

From "Look Both Ways" by Jason Reynolds

Related Words

• cereal
• porridge