aught

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 of aught

• nothing
• zero
• naught

Examples of aught in a Sentence

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

The pair were married from August 2022 to August 2024 after rekindling their early aughts romance. —Rachel McRady, PEOPLE, 2 June 2026

True to its early-aughts roots, the W doesn’t take itself too seriously. —Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 June 2026

As singer Tyla rose to global prominence, so did did the return of freestyle and Fulani braids, styles that looked back to the early aughts while feeling entirely refreshed. —Tiana Randall, Forbes.com, 1 June 2026

Paramount+ continues to shuffle its own deck of catalogue titles, mostly with hits from the ’90s and aughts. —Brian Tallerico, Vulture, 27 May 2026

Word History

Etymology

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

First Known Use

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

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

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