Nought Meaning
/nɔːt/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounNothing; something which does not exist.
nounA thing or person of no worth or value; nil.
Sentence Examples
I teach kids from nought to five years old.
It is not right to vex ourselves at things, for they care nought about it.
All of his hard work eventually came to nought after failure.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The score was nil and the team had ____ points at the end of the game.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
All of his hard work came to ____ when the project was suddenly cancelled by the board.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
""It is the truth; naught have I hidden from thee, Kallikrates.""
— 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
"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:
"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 shall be noughted following our Master, Jesus, till we be full purged, that is to say, till we be fully noughted of our deadly flesh and of all our inward affections which are not very good;)"
— 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:
"Your usefulness is zero, your worth zero, and as zero you deserve to be treated as nothing, and in the extreme, noughted."
— 2001, William Desmond, Ethics and the Between, page 507:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The score was nil and the team had ____ points at the end of the game.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
All of his hard work came to ____ when the project was suddenly cancelled by the board.