aught

1 of 3

pronoun

ˈȯt 

ˈät

1

: anything

2

: all, everything

for aught I care

for aught we know

aught

2 of 3

adverb

archaic

: at all

aught

3 of 3

noun

1

: zero, cipher

2

archaic : nonentity, nothing

3

aughts plural : the ten year period from 2000 through 2009

By the middle of the aughts, … the percentage of 26-year-olds living with their parents reached 20 percent, nearly double what it was in 1970.

—Don Peck

Did you know?

"If you know aught which does behove my knowledge / Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not / In ignorant concealment," Polixenes begs Camillo in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, employing the "anything" sense of aught. Shakespeare didn't coin the pronoun aught, which has been a part of the English language since before the 12th century, but he did put it to frequent use. Writers today may be less likely to use aught than were their literary predecessors, but the pronoun does continue to turn up occasionally. Aught can also be a noun meaning "zero," and "the aughts" is heard occasionally for the decade at the beginning of a century (say, 1900-1909 or 2000-2009) in which the penultimate digit is a zero.

Synonyms

Noun

• cipher
• goose egg
• naught
• nought
• nil
• nothing
• o
• oh
• zero
• zilch
• zip

Examples of aught in a Sentence

Noun

for dates, the year is automatically listed as a pair of aughts, so the user has to scroll down to the correct figure

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Thanks to easily burnable CDs and the proliferation of shareable MP3s, record companies lost money to digital piracy in the early aughts. —Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Jan. 2025

In the early aughts, minimalism and cool tones like gray and stark white reigned supreme. —Maggie Gillette, Better Homes & Gardens, 8 Jan. 2025

The store features a transitional design, still cold and mostly metallic like the Apple Stores of the aughts but including the large sliding-door design that is now common across the country. —Zach Schiffman, Curbed, 24 Dec. 2024

In the 80s, 90s, and early aughts, the mall was about discovery and community, something modern shopping seems to lack. —Alyssa Hardy, Vogue, 11 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Pronoun and Adverb

Middle English, from Old English āwiht, from ā ever + wiht creature, thing — more at aye, wight

Noun

alteration (resulting from false division of a naught) of naught

First Known Use

Pronoun

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Adverb

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above

Noun

1872, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing aught

• for aught one knows

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Kids Definition

aught

1 of 2 pronoun

ˈȯt 

ˈät

: all entry 3 sense 1

for aught we know

aught

2 of 2 noun

1

: zero entry 1 sense 1

2

: the first decade of a century

Etymology

Pronoun

Old English āwiht "anything," from ā "ever, always" and wiht "creature, thing"

Noun

from naught "zero," from mistaking a naught for an aught