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

• nothing
• zero
• naught

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

The beloved show also gave some of our favorite heartthrobs from the early aughts their start, as Milo Ventimiglia, Jared Padalecki and Matt Czuchry passed through Stars Hollow. —Stephanie Sengwe, PEOPLE, 5 Oct. 2025

The Bubble Skirt The bubble skirt is back from the early aughts; it feels refreshed and elevated this time around. —Andrea Zendejas, Vogue, 2 Oct. 2025

Wide Leg Jeans Aelfric Eden’s wide-leg jeans take me back to the early aughts in the best way. —India Roby, Glamour, 1 Oct. 2025

That’s all thanks to Fever’s status as both a capsule of early aughts emo and a road map for the pop-leaning explosion that would go on to include artists like Gym Class Heroes and Cobra Starship. —Maya Georgi, Rolling Stone, 27 Sep. 2025

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

Rhymes for aught

• baht
• blot
• bott
• bought
• brought
• caught
• clot
• cot
• cott
• dot
• fought
• fraught

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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