Naught

//nɔːt// noun, num, pron

noun, num, pron ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Nothingness. archaic, countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    complete failure wordnet
  3. 3
    Alternative spelling of nought. US, alt-of, alternative, countable, dated, uncountable
  4. 4
    a quantity of no importance; thing (object:), singular, negative pronoun; pronoun, thing, singular; quantifier: negative existential wordnet
Pronoun
  1. 1
    Nothing.

    "Naught can come of this, you mark my words."

Numeral
  1. 1
    Alternative spelling of nought (“zero”). alt-of, alternative, archaic

Synonyms

All synonyms
nothinga little thingaughtaughtciphercipher

Example

More examples

"The shape of an egg is like the shape of a naught (0)."

Etymology

From the Middle English naught, nought, naht, nawiht, from Old English nawiht. Cognate with West Frisian neat (“nothing, naught”). Doublet of nought. Equivalent to ne + aught.

Related phrases

aleph-naughtbring to naughtcome to naughtdo-naughtgood-for-naughtmore often than naughtset at naught

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.