aughts plural: the ten year period from 2000 through 2009
By the middle of the aughts, β¦ the percentage of 26-year-olds living with their parents reached 20 percent, nearly double what it was in 1970.βπ Image Don Peck
"If you know aught which does behove my knowledge / Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not / In ignorant concealment," Polixenes begs Camillo in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, employing the "anything" sense of aught. Shakespeare didn't coin the pronoun aught, which has been a part of the English language since before the 12th century, but he did put it to frequent use. Writers today may be less likely to use aught than were their literary predecessors, but the pronoun does continue to turn up occasionally. Aught can also be a noun meaning "zero," and "the aughts" is heard occasionally for the decade at the beginning of a century (say, 1900-1909 or 2000-2009) in which the penultimate digit is a zero.
Noun
for dates, the year is automatically listed as a pair of aughts, so the user has to scroll down to the correct figure
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Noun
In the limited series, premiering April 10, everyoneβs favorite dysfunctional family β first introduced in Foxβs beloved aughts-era single-cam comedy β reunites, much to the chagrin of Frankie Munizβs title character.βπ Image Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 28 Mar. 2026 In the aughts and 2010s, when the Riches were cooking in New York City, Asian influences were becoming conventional at high-end restaurants following the rise of influential chefs like David Chang and David Bouley, who rallied behind Japanese cuisine.βπ Image Cesar Hernandez, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Mar. 2026 Since the early aughts, Sienna Miller has been the go-to inspiration for boho beach waves, milky skin, and pinch-me cheeks.βπ Image Jessica Radloff, Glamour, 23 Mar. 2026 The first seasonβs view of the deprivations of reality TV captured the apocalyptic feeling of Hollywood in the early aughts, the sense that reality, cheaper to film than a standard network show, would mean the end of jobs.βπ Image Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 20 Mar. 2026 See All Example Sentences for aught
Word History
Etymology
Pronoun and Adverb
Middle English, from Old English Δwiht, from Δ ever + wiht creature, thing β more at aye, wight
Noun
alteration (resulting from false division of a naught) of naught
First Known Use
Pronoun
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Adverb
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above
