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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

nought.

A thing or person of no worth or value; nil.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/nɔːt/Received-Pronunciation/noːt/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/nʊt/Multicultural-London-English/nɔt/US
  1. A thing or person of no worth or value; nil.

  2. Not any quantity of number; zero; the score of no points in a game.

    0.335 cm is nought/zero point three three five of a centimeter.
  3. The figure or character representing, or having the shape of, zero.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English nought, noght, noȝt, from Old English nōwiht, nāwiht, which in turn comes from ne-ā-wiht, which was a phrase used as an emphatic "no", meaning "not anything". Equivalent to ne + ought or ne + a + wight. Doublet of naught and not.

adj/nɔːt/Received-Pronunciation/noːt/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/nʊt/Multicultural-London-English/nɔt/US
  1. Good for nothing; worthless.

    obsolete
  2. Wicked, immoral.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English nought, noght, noȝt, from Old English nōwiht, nāwiht, which in turn comes from ne-ā-wiht, which was a phrase used as an emphatic "no", meaning "not anything". Equivalent to ne + ought or ne + a + wight. Doublet of naught and not.

verb/nɔːt/Received-Pronunciation/noːt/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/nʊt/Multicultural-London-English/nɔt/US
  1. To abase, to set at nought.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English nought, noght, noȝt, from Old English nōwiht, nāwiht, which in turn comes from ne-ā-wiht, which was a phrase used as an emphatic "no", meaning "not anything". Equivalent to ne + ought or ne + a + wight. Doublet of naught and not.

adv/nɔːt/Received-Pronunciation/noːt/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/nʊt/Multicultural-London-English/nɔt/US
  1. To no extent; in no way; not at all.

  2. Not.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English nought, noght, noȝt, from Old English nōwiht, nāwiht, which in turn comes from ne-ā-wiht, which was a phrase used as an emphatic "no", meaning "not anything". Equivalent to ne + ought or ne + a + wight. Doublet of naught and not.

pron/nɔːt/Received-Pronunciation/noːt/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/nʊt/Multicultural-London-English/nɔt/US
  1. Nothing; zero.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English nought, noght, noȝt, from Old English nōwiht, nāwiht, which in turn comes from ne-ā-wiht, which was a phrase used as an emphatic "no", meaning "not anything". Equivalent to ne + ought or ne + a + wight. Doublet of naught and not.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.