- a variation of naught.
nought
Americannoun
-
noughts
plural
noun
noun
Usage
What does nought mean? Nought means nothing or none, as in All of my efforts at winning the game were for nought because I lost badly. Nought also refers to zero. For example, if your math class is in Room One-Nought-Seven, it is in Room 107. The informal term noughties for the decade of 2000–2009 comes from this sense. Nought is an alternate spelling of naught, which has the exact same meaning. Example: I had nought to do with breaking the lamp, but my mother still thought I was involved.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of nought
before 900; Middle English; Old English nōht, contraction of nōwiht, equivalent to ne not + ōwiht aught 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
See “something will turn up” and “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
From 51-0, Scotland were 58-4 with Sarah and Kathryn Bryce out for nought and four respectively.
From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026
Stokes returned scores of 12 and nought in England's first-Test win over New Zealand, but was not alone in struggling for runs on a Lord's surface that made batting a challenge.
From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026
History has taught you that pouring out your time, energy and emotions will similarly come to nought.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 3, 2026
Since our evacuation of the town onto the ships and transports of this fleet, there has been little employment for us; and having nought to engage us, we spend much time sleeping.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Earlier, she took on Dame Kelly at a game of bean-bag noughts and crosses.
From BBC ● May 16, 2023
Working with just ones, noughts, and a saucerful of secrets, these ground-breaking artists stand front and centre of any modern corporate or commerical strategy.
From Forbes ● Jun. 30, 2015
Come the naughty noughts, bulging upper-body muscles were eventually co-opted by the Jersey Shore crowd whereupon they gradually lost much of their frisson.
From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2015
He said the first programs he intended to run on his mega processor were likely to be Tetris, noughts and crosses and 1970s evolutionary simulation Life by mathematician John Conway.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2015
Thus:— One player chooses crosses and the other noughts, and the one who is to begin puts his mark—say, a cross—in one of the nine squares.
From What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
