oughtn't
AmericanUsage
See contraction, ought 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.
If those claims are true, oughtn’t the grievance go the other way?
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 6, 2026
“You people deserve something better than this. You oughtn’t have to work so hard.”
From The New Yorker • Jul. 14, 2019
Asked, for instance, whether he liked whitewashing fences, Tom had said: “Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”
From New York Times • Mar. 16, 2017
In the first instance, there oughtn’t ever be any fine-grained analysis of the tab, as on the episode of Portlandia where stymied diners require the arithmetic intervention of a Winston Wolfe figure.
From Slate • Jun. 19, 2014
Colored folks oughtn’t tuh be so hard on one ’nother.”
From "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
