AUGHT

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A quantity of no importance

Example:

I didn't hear zilch about it

Synonyms:

aught; cipher; cypher; goose egg; nada; naught; nil; nix; nothing; null; zero; zilch; zip; zippo

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Hypernyms ("aught" is a kind of...):

relative quantity (a quantity relative to some purpose)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "aught"):

nihil ((Latin) nil; nothing (as used by a sheriff after an unsuccessful effort to serve a writ))

bugger all; Fanny Adams; fuck all; sweet Fanny Adams (little or nothing at all)

Credits

Context examples:

Your master, Poole, is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer; hence, for aught I know, the alteration of his voice; hence the mask and the avoidance of his friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug, by means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery—God grant that he be not deceived!

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It was a lovely sight, even to me, poor wretch who had never beheld aught beautiful before.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But I have a task here, Alleyne, which is harder to me than aught that was set before me yesterday.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an' lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She nodded her head and looked at him askance, as though astonished that he should have aught to say.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

It was a dark and evil-appearing thing, that hut, not fit for aught better than swine in a civilized land; but for us, who had known the misery of the open boat, it was a snug little habitation.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Had the man who sits upon your right been ruler of this land, I had indeed thought twice before I looked to him for aught that was knightly or generous.