ought

Less common meanings

5. 5
   philosophynouncountable

   A claim about how things should be, contrasted with a statement of how things actually are.

   Critics noted that the essay slid from an is to an ought without any justification.

   Every moral code rests on some ought that cannot be proved from facts alone.

   UsageOften paired with is: you cannot get an ought from an is.

   Oppositeis

   Note

   The modal turned into a countable noun, at home in moral philosophy. Mortimer Jerome Adler's The Time of Our Lives (1970) writes of oughts that "cannot be converted into statements of fact". Truth Matters: Essays in Honor of Jacques Maritain (2004) asks whether one may derive an ought from purely descriptive premises. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

   • Mortimer Jerome Adler wrote The Time of Our Lives. en.wiktionary.org
   • The Time of Our Lives was first published in 1970. openlibrary.org
   • Adler's book contains the quoted wording about oughts. en.wiktionary.org
   • Truth Matters: Essays in Honor of Jacques Maritain was published in 2004. cuapress.org
   • Truth Matters asks whether an ought can be derived from purely descriptive premises. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   zeronoun

   Another spelling of aught: zero, especially as spoken in years and numbers, as in nineteen ought nine.

   My great-grandmother was born in nineteen ought nine on a small farm in Kansas.

   His hunting rifle is a thirty-ought-six that once belonged to his father.

   UsageMostly in spoken years and calibers: nineteen ought nine, thirty-ought-six. In careful writing, zero or nought is safer.

   Note

   The digit as people say it aloud when reckoning. In Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), the schoolmaster Squeers tallies his fees aloud with "three oughts is an ought". Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • Charles Dickens wrote Nicholas Nickleby. gutenberg.org
   • Nicholas Nickleby was first published in serial form in 1838–39. en.wikipedia.org
   • Squeers is a schoolmaster. gutenberg.org
   • Squeers says “three oughts is an ought” while calculating his fees. gutenberg.org
7. 7
   pronounarchaic

   Another spelling of aught: anything at all. Archaic.

   UsageNow met mainly in older texts; in modern writing, use anything.

   Note

   A spelling of aught that shares its letters with the "duty" verb, so the sentence has to tell them apart: here the word stands where a noun would, as in the 17th-century bishop Joseph Hall's "nor ought else that might either vex or affright my soul". Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Joseph Hall was a seventeenth-century bishop. en.wikipedia.org
   • The quoted words are attributed to Joseph Hall in The Devout Soul, also containing The Free Prisoner. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   adverbarchaic

   Another spelling of aught: at all, or to any degree. Archaic.

   UsageFound in older texts; in modern writing, use at all.

9. 9
   verbobsolete

   Past tense of owe. Obsolete; the modern form is owed.

   There was a certayne lender / which had two detters / the one ought five hondred pence / and the other fifty.

   1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt (Tyndale Bible)

   Note

   The word began as a past tense, from Old English āhte, past of āgan "to own, possess". William Tyndale's The Newe Testamẽt (1526) has a debtor who "ought five hondred pence", and John Florio's Montaigne (1603) speaks of the affection a father "ought his children". The debt need not be money. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

   • Ought derives from Old English āhte, the past tense of āgan, meaning to own or possess. en.wiktionary.org
   • William Tyndale's New Testament was first published in 1526. library.chethams.com
   • The 1526 text describes a debtor who ought five hondred pence. archive.org
   • John Florio's translation of Montaigne first appeared in 1603. florios-montaigne.org
   • Florio's Montaigne uses ought his children for affection owed by a father, Aristippus. en.wikisource.org