naught

American  

[nawt] / nɔt /

Or nought

noun

naughts plural

1. nothing.

2. a cipher (0); zero.

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adjective

1. lost; ruined.

2. Archaic. worthless; useless.

3. Obsolete. morally bad; wicked.

adverb

1. Obsolete. not.

idioms

1. come to naught, to come to nothing; be without result or fruition; fail.

2. set at naught, to regard or treat as of no importance; disdain.

   He entered a milieu that set his ideals at naught.

naught British  

/ nɔːt /

noun

1. archaic nothing or nothingness; ruin or failure

2. a variant spelling (esp US) of nought

3. to have disregard or scorn for; disdain

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adverb

1. archaic not at all

   it matters naught

adjective

1. obsolete worthless, ruined, or wicked

naught More Idioms  

1. see come to nothing (naught).

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• naughts
  plural

Etymology

Origin of naught

before 900; Middle English; Old English nauht, nāwiht ( nā no ¹ + wiht thing). See nought, wight ¹, whit

Explanation

When things come to naught, they've come to nothing. If you feel bad about ending up with nothing, you can also say "It was all for naught!" Have you ever put a lot of work into something and all you ended up with was nada, nil, nothing, zero, zilch, and zip? Then your efforts came to naught. Naught is a word for nothing that is used in specific ways, usually when a project or effort comes to naught.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

naught naughts

But it was all for naught, as Ecgfrith died less than six months after his father.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026

I learned from a successful mentor that you can get a lot of things right, but if you don’t get the major trend right, it’s for naught.

From MarketWatch ● May 6, 2026

Some in the Iranian capital feared the ceasefire will come to naught, but others declared victory and most breathed a sigh of relief after weeks of bombardment.

From Barron's ● Apr. 9, 2026

To add fuel to the barbecue, the deal with Argentina may be all for naught.

From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2025

All the appeals I had made to him over the years had come to naught.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

But she said, if Morris Chestnut was the ideal black boyfriend of the ’90s and the naughts, aka urbane, upwardly mobile, suave, smooth, Lakeith is this generation’s black rom-com boyfriend, emotionally intelligent, creative, quirky, funny.

From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2019

Until the naughts, when I simply quit going.

From New York Times ● Oct. 17, 2016

No. Right or wrong, the referee’s decision at the double naughts must stand.

From New York Times ● Nov. 3, 2015

Rather, we’re in the midst of a two-decade period without universally agreed-upon names: the naughts, aughts, zeros, oh-ohs, or 2000s; tens, tweens and teens.

From New York Times ● Jan. 4, 2013

Such thyngs are swayd by chaunce: And naughts more arrogant than Ignorance.—

From A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 3 by Bullen, A. H. (Arthur Henry)