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"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
Examples of aught in a Sentence
Emily Weaver, Peoplemag, 18 May 2024
As an undergraduate at Harvard in the early aughts, he was expected to study economics.
—Emily Lordi Philip Cheung, New York Times, 10 May 2024
The Tattooist is the most conventional concentration-camp narrative of the three, framed by Lali’s conversations, in the early aughts, with the woman who would transform his reminiscences into a biographical novel.
—TIME, 8 May 2024
Since the late aughts, the city has undergone a culinary renaissance propelled by a cohort of chefs, notably Sean Brock, who brought the farm-to-table movement to new heights.
—Stephanie Burt, Saveur, 8 May 2024
As a baby of the late ‘90s, her nods to alt-pop and indie rock of the early aughts are clear.
—Margaret Farrell, SPIN, 3 May 2024
Come for the late aughts fashion; stay for the timeless workplace drama!
—Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times, 3 May 2024
Conceived by Tan-Luxe and Hilton’s 11:11 Media, the ad depicts Hilton summoning two AI versions of herself, the Simple Life Paris Hilton from the early aughts and a futuristic Paris Hilton from the year 2064.
—Beth Sobol, Allure, 3 May 2024
And when Lori Harvey’s micro-French tip made a quiet statement, Latto’s mega French took us back to the early aughts.
—India Espy-Jones, Essence, 3 May 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'aught.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Aught.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aught. Accessed 23 May. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
aught
1 of 2 pronoun
aught
2 of 2 nounPronoun
Old English āwiht "anything," from ā "ever, always" and wiht "creature, thing"
Noun
from naught "zero," from mistaking a naught for an aught
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