ought
verb/ɔːt/UK/oːt//ɔt/US
Etymology
From Middle English oughte, aughte, aȝte, ahte, from Old English āhte, first and third person singular past tense of Old English āgan (“to own, possess”), equivalent to owe + -t. Cognate with Sanskrit ईश्वर (īśvará, “capable of, liable”).
Definitions
simple past of owe
- There was a certayne lender / which had two detters / the one ought five hondred pence / and the other fifty.
- […]witneſſe Ariſtippus, who being vrged with the affection he ought his children, as proceeding from his loynes, began to ſpeake and ſpit[…].
Indicating duty or obligation.
- I ought to vote in the coming election.
Indicating advisability or prudence.
- You ought to always stand back from the edge of the platform.
- Do you think we ought to leave now?
›+ 4 more definitionsshow fewer
Indicating desirability.
- He ought to read the book; it was very good.
Indicating likelihood or probability.
- We ought to arrive by noon if we take the motorway, shouldn't we?
Alternative spelling of aught
Alternative spelling of aught; anything
- Is it a small benefit, that I am placed there […] where I see no drunken comessations, no rebellious routs, no violent oppressions, no obscene rejoicings, nor ought else that might either vex or affright my soul?
A statement of what ought to be the case as contrasted with what is the case.
- There are value judgments that are not reducible to observable matters of fact, and there are oughts that cannot be construed as hypothetical and, therefore, cannot be converted into statements of fact.
- Is there a fallacy involved in deriving an ought from a set of exclusively factual or descriptive premises?
The neighborhood
- synonymshould
- synonymbe supposed to
- neighborought to
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for ought. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA