/ɔːt/, /ʊt/, /ɔt/
OriginFrom Middle English oughte, aughte, aȝte, ahte, from Old English āhte, first and third person singular past tense of Old English āgan (“to own, possess”), equivalent to owe + -t.
Cognate with Sanskrit ईश्वर (īśvará, “capable of, liable”).
- form-of, obsolete, pastsimple past of owe
“There was a certayne lender / which had two detters / the one ought five hondred pence / and the other fifty.”
“[…]witneſſe Ariſtippus, who being vrged with the affection he ought his children, as proceeding from his loynes, began to ſpeake and ſpit[…].”
- auxiliary, dated, formalIndicating duty or obligation.
“I ought to vote in the coming election.”
- auxiliary, dated, formalIndicating advisability or prudence.
“You ought to always stand back from the edge of the platform.”
“Do you think we ought to leave now?”
- auxiliary, dated, formalIndicating desirability.
“He ought to read the book; it was very good.”
- auxiliary, dated, formalIndicating likelihood or probability.
“We ought to arrive by noon if we take the motorway, shouldn't we?”
“My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, ”
- A statement of what ought to be the case as contrasted with what is the case.
“There are value judgments that are not reducible to observable matters of fact, and there are oughts that cannot be construed as hypothetical and, therefore, cannot be converted into statements of fac”
“Is there a fallacy involved in deriving an ought from a set of exclusively factual or descriptive premises?”
Formsoughts(plural)