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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.
Examples of aught in a Sentence
Abid Rahman, HollywoodReporter, 18 Apr. 2025
For many, Bieber has been a household name ever since the late aughts.
—Jenzia Burgos, StyleCaster, 17 Apr. 2025
In the aughts, many of the ads were focused on technology.
—Leah Dolan, CNN Money, 14 Apr. 2025
After three Saturday Night Live hosting gigs in the early aughts, Jack Black hasn’t appeared in almost 20 years.
—Ben Rosenstock, Vulture, 6 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for aught
Cite this Entry
“Aught.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aught. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025.
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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