sow one's wild oats

present singular third person sows one's wild oats · participle present sowing one's wild oats · past sowed one's wild oats · participle past sown one's wild oats · participle past sowed one's wild oats · alternative sow wild oats · alternative sow one's oats

1. figurativelyidiomaticTo spread one's genes around by impregnating many females.
2. broadlyidiomaticTo engage in premarital or extramarital flings.

   “A nun advising a young woman to leave the convent and explore the world, the subtext being to sow her wild oats—well, it was more outrageous than any graphic scenes,” he had said.

   2022, Ling Ma, “Office Hours”, in Bliss Montage, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Let the boys be boys,—the longer the better,—and let the young men sow their wild oats if they must,—but mothers, sisters, and friends may help to make the crop a small one, and keep many tares from spoiling the harvest, by believing,—and showing that they believe,—in the possibility of loyalty to the virtues which make men manliest in good women's eyes.

   1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, “Learning to Forget”, in Little Women: […], 2nd part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 264

   The young men go down to the sea and sow their wild oats in the wicked ports, returning periodically, between voyages, to live the old intensive morality, to court till ten o’clock, to sit under the minister each Sunday, and to listen at home to the same stern precepts that the elders preached to them from the time they were laddies.

   1914, Jack London, “Samuel”, in The Strength of the Strong, New York: MacMillan

3. broadlyidiomaticTo have numerous sexual partners.
4. broadlyidiomaticoftenTo indulge in a period of irresponsible behavior.