| 词源 |
feel one’s oats. Someone feeling his oats or full of oats is in high spirits, full of pep, so full of himself that he may even be showing off a bit. The allusion is to lively horses fed on oats and the expression is American, first recorded in 1843 by Canadian Thomas Haliburton, the humorist whose Sam Slick gave us “cry over spilt milk” and other expressions. Men, women, and children can feel their oats, but only young men are said to sow their wild oats. |