Aught
/ɔːt/noun
Anything; any amount or thing, often used in negative or interrogative contexts.
Did you know?Aught and naught are historical opposites in English, both descending from Old English forms built with the same root for “ever/always,” which is why the pair feels strangely magical: one means “anything at all,” the other “not anything.”
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*aiw-
“life; age; eternity”
Old English
OE
āwiht
“anything at all, a whit”
Middle English
ME
aught
“anything; a thing; a whit”
Modern English
English
aught
“anything; all; at all”