nought
UK/nɔːt/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/noːt/
nought noun: a thing or person of no worth or value; nil.
Noun
nought (plural noughts)
Adjective
nought
- Good for nothing; worthless.
- It is nought, it is nought (saith the buyer:) but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 20:14
- Synonyms:
- good-for-naught, no good, valueless, bastardly, blown, cacky, chaffy, cocking, crapalicious, cruddy
- Wicked, immoral.
- Synonyms:
- depraved, iniquitous, unscrupulous, aberrant, corrupt, corrupted, lost, dirty-handed, dissolute, effete
Verb
nought (third-person singular simple present noughts, present participle noughting, simple past and past participle noughted)
- To abase, to set at nought.
- In this naked word sin, our Lord brought to my mind, generally, all that is not good, and the shameful despite and the utter noughting that He bare for us in this life, and His dying; and all the pains and passions of all His creatures, ghostly and bodily; (for we be all partly noughted, and we...1393, Julian of Norwich, translated by Grace Warrack, Revelations of Divine Love, published 1901
- The nought which is you has devoured the style and been sustained for a while as a non-you until the style is emptied out by the noughting self.1983, Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, page 25
Adverb
nought
- To no extent; in no way; not at all.
- Not.
Pronoun
nought
- Nothing; zero.
nought meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
nought in Tamil
- பூச்சியம், சுழியம், சுன்னம், இன்மை, ஏதுமின்மைவெறுமை, மதிப்பற்ற ஒன்று
nought in Urdu
- nought, naught, cipher, zero
- صفر sifr
nought in Malayalam
- nil, zero, love
- ഒന്നുമില്ലായ്മ, പൂജ്യം, ശൂന്യം, ശുന്യം, സൊന്ന, സുന്നം
- naught, nil, nothing (at all)
- ഒന്നുമില്ലായ്മ, പൂജ്യം, സുന്നം, സൊന്ന, നാസ്തി, തുച്ഛം
nought in Kannada
- ಶೂನ್ಯ, ಸೊನ್ನೆ, ಅಭಾವ, ವ್ಯರ್ಥ
More languagesFewer languages
- nought in Pashto
- نشت nëšt
Examples of nought in a sentence
- The Bank of England's anti-inflation efforts will come to nought if the U.S. Federal Reserve refuse to join in the plan.
- Our efforts were all for nought.
- It was a grand statement of optimism that would sadly come to nought.
Synonyms of nought
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- for the birds
- fucking
- garbagey
- good-for-nothing
- goodless
- ineffectual
- jabberwocky
- junky
- mouldy
- no-account
- no good / no-good
- nonvaluable
- not worth a damn
- not worth a dime
- not worth a plug nickel
- not worth a brass farthing
- not worth a cent
- not worth a cress
- not worth a curse
- not worth a Continental
- not worth a farthing
- not worth a nickel
- not worth a penny
- not worth salt
- not worth a whistle
- of no value
- pissass
- punk
- putid
- rubbishy
Forms of nought
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | noughts |
| alternative form | naught |
| alternative form | nowt |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | noughts |
| present participle | noughting |
| past participle | noughted |
| past | noughted |
Origin of nought
From Middle English nought, noght, noȝt, from Old English nōwiht, nāwiht, which in turn comes from ne-ā-wiht, which was a phrase used as an emphatic "no", meaning "not anything". Equivalent to ne + ought or ne + a + wight. Doublet of naught and not.
Words formed from nought
Phrases with nought
Words that rhyme with nought
Questions about nought
- What does nought mean?
- Nought means a thing or person of no worth or value; nil.
- What is nought in Tamil?
- Nought in Tamil is பூச்சியம், சுழியம், சுன்னம். See Nought meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is nought?
- Nought can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce nought?
- Nought is pronounced /nɔːt/ (UK).
- What is the plural of nought?
- The plural of nought is noughts.
Words near nought in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nought (page history and authors); nought (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); صفر (Urdu) (page history and authors); nought (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); nought (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); نشت (Pashto) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-nought.ogg.
Cite this entry: “nought.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nought. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.