Word.ws English Dictionary

oughtism

oughtism noun: the habit of doing things only because one feels that one ought to do them.

Noun

oughtism (uncountable)

  1. (informal) The habit of doing things only because one feels that one ought to do them.

Origin of oughtism

From ought + -ism, sometimes as a pun on autism.

Questions about oughtism

What does oughtism mean?
Oughtism means the habit of doing things only because one feels that one ought to do them.
What part of speech is oughtism?
Oughtism is a noun.

Words near oughtism in the dictionary

  1. Oughterard
  2. oughtest
  3. oughteth
  4. Oughtibridge
  5. oughties
  6. oughtism
  7. oughtn't
  8. oughtn't've
  9. oughtness
  10. oughtnesses
  11. oughts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oughtism (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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