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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
Daniel Libit, Sportico.com, 20 Nov. 2024
In the early aughts, living with his wife and two young children in Pasadena, his growing flock began to include new American followers.
—Joseph Bien-Kahn, Rolling Stone, 3 Nov. 2024
Though a slicker update of one of horror’s most influential films, this remake didn’t just kick-start a new series of Chainsaw Massacre films but an entire wave of slasher remakes in the early aughts, from Black Christmas to Halloween.
—Meagan Navarro, Vulture, 31 Oct. 2024
Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton were besties in the early aughts.
—Stephanie Sengwe, People.com, 30 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Aught.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aught. Accessed 28 Nov. 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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