Definitions for ought

• Definition
• Anagrams (44)

ought ought

Spelling: [awt]

IPA: /ɔt/

Ought is a 5 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 9 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 10 points.

You can make 44 anagrams from letters in ought (ghotu).

Definitions for ought

noun

1. duty or obligation.
2. aught2 .
3. anything whatever; any part:
4. a cipher (0); zero.
5. aughts, the first decade of any century, especially the years 1900 through 1909 or 2000 through 2009.

adverb

1. Archaic. in any degree; at all; in any respect.

noun, adverb

1. aught1 .

auxiliary verb

1. (used to express duty or moral obligation):
2. (used to express justice, moral rightness, or the like):
3. (used to express propriety, appropriateness, etc.):
4. (used to express probability or natural consequence):

Origin of ought

before 900; Middle English ought, aught, Old English āhte, past tense of āgan to owe

Examples for ought

He decided he ought to think more about what he was doing and what he should do.

We ought to seek Chinese cooperation in a response to this North Korean act of aggression.

Then when we arrive at his flat in Shepherd's Bush following the escape, perhaps there ought to be remnants of the ladder.

I know that I have spoken of him as I ought not to have spoken.

When companies do bad things they ought to be held accountable for them.

And yet there ought to be so much to do here; it's all so fresh and roomy and jolly.

I ought to be supple enough after the practice of these three days.

“Novelist good for nothing else,” said Samuel Beckett, and that ought to be taken as a compliment.

But all the while, the days grew shorter and the nights were colder than they ought to have been.

The officers explained that those Sikhs had been lynched to death and that Singh ought to anticipate the same fate for himself.