Oughtn't

//ˈɔt.n̩t// verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    (US, Philippines, dated, rare) ought not (negative auxiliary). Commonwealth, Ireland, UK

    "We ought to wake dad, oughtn't we?"

Synonyms

All synonyms
shouldn't

Example

More examples

"We really ought to buy a new car, oughtn't we?"

Etymology

From ought + -n't.

More for "oughtn't"

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