Word.ws English Dictionary

oughta

UK/ˈɔːtə//ˈɔtə/

oughta is the contraction of ought to.

Meaning of ought to

Verb

ought to

  1. (auxiliary) Indicating duty or obligation.
  2. (auxiliary) Indicating advisability or prudence.
  3. (auxiliary) Indicating desirability.
  4. (auxiliary) Indicating likelihood or probability.

Forms of oughta

alternative formorter

Phrases with oughta

Questions about oughta

What is oughta the contraction of?
Oughta is the contraction of ought to.
How do you pronounce oughta?
Oughta is pronounced /ˈɔːtə/ (UK).

Words near oughta in the dictionary

  1. Ouest
  2. ough
  3. ought
  4. ought to
  5. ought-not-ness
  6. oughta
  7. oughten
  8. oughter
  9. Oughterard
  10. oughtest
  11. oughteth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oughta (page history and authors); ought to (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-oughta.wav.

Cite this entry: “oughta.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oughta. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.