nought
/noːt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.51 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To abase, to set at nought.
adv
Not.
Example Sentences
- "0.335 cm is nought/zero point three three five of a centimeter."
- "It is nought, it is nought (saith the buyer:) but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth."
- "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;)"
- "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."
- "Your usefulness is zero, your worth zero, and as zero you deserve to be treated as nothing, and in the extreme, noughted."
- "What is the use of noughting yourself? Who is noughting who? What is the use of searching for yourself? Who is searching for who? There are not two of you ! You cannot find yourself, or the absence of yourself."
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: nought, nōwiht
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /noːt/
- British English: /nɔːt/