aught 3[awkht] ExamplesWord Origin verb (used with object) Scot.
- to own; possess.
- to owe (someone or something); be obligated to.
adjective
- possessed of.
noun
- Archaic.
- ownership; possession.
- property; a possession.
Origin of aught 3 before 1000; Middle English; Old English æht; cognate with Old High German ēht, Gothic aihts; akin to owe, own aught 4[awkht] adjective Scot.
Origin of aught 4 Middle English aghte, aughte, variant of eighte; see eight Examples from the Web for aughter Historical Examples of aughter
Yu’d aughter be ashamed tu send a man egs that wa, anny how.
George P. Burnham
I begged, because she aughter know that is a sore point with me and not intention, and she had me on the raw.
Nina Wilcox Putnam
W’en I wuz erbout fifty years ole, de notion got inter my head dat I aughter preach.
Opie P. Read
British Dictionary definitions for aughter aught 1 ought used with a negative or in conditional or interrogative sentences or clauses archaic, or literary pronoun
- anything at all; anything whatever (esp in the phrase for aught I know)
adverb
- dialect in any least part; to any degree
Word Origin for aught Old English āwiht, from ā ever, ay 1 + wiht thing; see wight 1 aught 2ought noun
- a less common word for nought
Word Origin and History for aughter aught n.1
“something,” Old English awiht “aught, anything, something,” literally “e’er a whit,” from Proto-Germanic *aiwi “ever” (from PIE *aiw- “vital force, life, long life, eternity;” see eon) + *wihti “thing, anything whatever” (see wight). In Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, aught and ought occur indiscriminately.
aught n.2
“nothing, zero,” faulty separation of a naught (see naught; cf. also adder for the separation problem).