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ought

[awt]

Example Sentences Origin

auxiliary verb

(used to express duty or moral obligation): Every citizen ought to help.

(used to express justice, moral rightness, or the like): He ought to be punished. You ought to be ashamed.

(used to express propriety, appropriateness, etc.): You ought to be home early. We ought to bring her some flowers.

(used to express probability or natural consequence): That ought to be our train now.

noun

duty or obligation.

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Ought is one of our favorite verbs.

So is absquatulate. Does it mean:

to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.

to flee; abscond:

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Origin:
before 900; Middle English ought, aught, Old English āhte, past tense of āgan to owe

Synonyms
1. See must¹.

Usage note
Ought¹ forms its negative in a number of ways. Ought not occurs in all types of speech and writing and is fully standard: The conferees ought not to waste time on protocol. Oughtn't, largely a spoken form, is found mainly in the Midland and Southern dialects of the United States, where it is almost the universal form. EXPANDHadn't ought is a common spoken form in the Northern dialect area. It is sometimes condemned in usage guides and is uncommon in educated speech except of the most informal variety. Didn't ought and shouldn't ought are considered nonstandard
Both positive and negative forms of ought are almost always followed by the infinitive form: We ought to go now. You ought not to worry about it. Occasionally, to is omitted after the negative construction: Congress ought not adjourn without considering this bill.

COLLAPSE

Example Sentences

If they can save lives, many believe, managing money ought to be easy.

Whatever is the defining idea of the next decade, it ought to be free.

Greece, which is unambiguously insolvent, ought to have a hard but orderly write-down.

EXPAND

If they can save lives, many believe, managing money ought to be easy.

Whatever is the defining idea of the next decade, it ought to be free.

Greece, which is unambiguously insolvent, ought to have a hard but orderly write-down.

If the oceans came primarily from comets, the proportion ought to be closer.

There ought to be an immediate ban on the use of chimpanzees.

There ought to be more supervision of the fast-food joints.

Every drop of rain that falls in this thirsty part of the country ought to go in the land.

In other words, different diagnoses ought to reflect different disorders.

We ought to be asking a different question altogether.

We'd then be able to say, there's something community colleges ought to fix.

Bernanke ought to testify that additional fiscal stimulus is necessary.

Reimold said that more money ought to also be made available for research into known and potential impact sites.

Schmidt's opinion ought not to have been invited or published here as if it were some sort of public peer review.

All of these things have the net effect of destroying the true learning that ought to be going on.

In the process, it will reinvent our concept of what personal computing is, has been and ought to become.

Argento's methods make potentially stomach-turning material more interesting than it ought to be.

Participants ought to meet the following requirements:.

But that-with one hand tied behind their back-is precisely how democracies ought to fight terrorism.

Tobin has written a history of flight that ought to become the standard for his generation.

So whatever shape the dark matter takes, such as a ring, it ought to carry galaxies with it.

There ought to be a medium beyond the limits of the universe into which it can expand.

The line between science, magic and sheer fun is a thin one and that ought to be exploited.

But it ought to be strongly pointed out that this story is incomplete because it excludes adjunct instructors.

Congress ought to see to high unemployment with fiscal stimulus.

Watch a close encounter and decide whether it ought to be outlawed everywhere.

Greater understanding of brain function ought to lead to an eventual solution.

So, any of you who are too upset about what someone else is doing with their tattoos really ought to find a new hobby.

Users are urged to watch the ads online, and then select the programs during which they think the ads ought to run.

Private tragedies ought not to be the stuff of public moralizing.

Where spending, borrowing, and net imports will all grow-the opposite of what everyone agrees ought to be happening.

When you're solving mysteries, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt ought to do it.

We really ought to try salting our opinion with a little objectivity when it comes to natural and cultural history.

And according to some, that's the way it ought to be.

Sure, formal permission ought to be required for invasive studies, but there must be some point at which common sense applies.

At first blush, shares ought to be a good hedge against inflationary pressures.

It does not ought to be challenging yet mose men and women fail to recognize the basics.

Anyone who thinks it isn't ought to park their car in the sun for a few years.

Nothing in this opinion should be read to take a position on where that balance ought to be struck.

Whether it reshapes the discipline or proves merely to be the flavor of the decade, a professor ought to know about it.

As society grows healthier, spending on disability benefits ought to fall.

There ought to be not thousands, but tens of thousands of knots in front of me.

Others think time ought to be promoted rather than demoted.

Members of the crowd ought to have a variety of opinions, and to arrive at those opinions independently.

New information on either side of the equation ought to alter the effort countries make to curb emissions.

Congratulations, your grandchildren ought to be proud.

Two prominent defenders of science exchange their views on how scientists ought to approach religion and its followers.

It suggests that, with proper management, it ought to be possible to rebuild the world's fisheries.

If your viewpoint can't hold it's own w/o insults, perhaps you ought to research your topic better.

Pick a portfolio of these funds, and the resulting returns ought not to be too bumpy.

Big trucks ought to be the easiest, actually, to convert to hybrid.

But this ought to be long enough to get a snapshot of the molecule's structure.

Perhaps you ought to be thankful that you weren't born as a dog, rather than reveling in this self-congratulatory drivel.

But that doesn't settle what the terms of the underlying social contract ought to be if our goal is shared prosperity.

Someone ought to proofread these articles for punctuation before they're posted.

Indeed, it ought to be spending more now and revisiting the possibility of a payroll tax cut.

It's likely the skeptics, though they may not have defined it, are mostly concerned about what ought to be done about it.

They say what ought to be done, they whine about what the world has become.

If there is a link between religion and economic performance, then economists ought to have something to say about it.

It would seem that the so-called educational community ought to make a choice.

Any nation as rich as ours ought to guarantee health coverage for all of its residents.

In other words, if research goes against the interests of subjects, then that research ought to be stopped.

Some banker ought to be able to buy that out of his yearly.

She plays it hard, as it ought to be played, with all the ease that hard playing ought to have.

So the continent's rulers presumably ought to be worried by the effects of disastrous.

One ought to look at modern artists with the same respect and dedication.

Say, you've been telling yourself you really ought to replace your thirsty turf with a more drought-tolerant native.

My own view is that science ought to be unfettered and that every possible alternative ought to be explored.

In light of those abuses, here are some pragmatic recommendations that ought to be on the table for discussion.

The world ought to be fairly relaxed about a few hedge funds going bust.

Behe said, scientists ought to allow the plausibility that they are the work of an intelligent agent.

Well, if that's the case, the consumer electronics industry ought to have a master's.

The same intelligence for adding ought to also deal with its debris.

One cannot help thinking that the conflict ought never to have arisen.

Indeed, universities ought to be completely transparent about all aspects of their president's compensation package.

But perennial arguments about the price that ought to.

Instead, they ought to be frantically figuring out how to market to them.

Eisner ought to have left his name off it, and let the content speak for itself, if he believed so strongly in it.

On the face of it, shareholders ought to be relieved.

We understand why hunters want more tags-but the elk herd is about where it ought to be, according to our management plan.

One ought to be able to argue for either position and such a debate would take place in the.

And they ought to try writing clips for games released in the last month or.

The incident ought to impress the lesson that the dangers of the lakes rival those of the ocean.

And both of his parents are child psychologists, who really ought to know better.

Having eliminated one viral disease, the authorities decided they ought to be able to get rid of another: polio.

The net result of volcanoes/earthquakes and meteors/meteorites ought to be nil with regard to the rising sea levels.

Those with slow-twitch muscles ought to be better at endurance.

Considerable sustained purring ought to be audible around town this morning.

To get other corporations to grant you access, you also ought to try some networking.

Savers may complain but interest rates ought to be low where there is an excess of savings and spending is weak.

But maintaining user enthusiasm for the platform ought to be.

But fraternity is at work here, too, even if one wants to argue in general that people ought to be allowed to do what they like.

Ideally, politicians ought to speed up foreclosure, which in some states can take up to two years.

At the heart of the law was the belief that content creators ought to have complete control over how their works are distributed.

Their gross errors ought to be part of any story that cites.

Things you could count, he said, you ought to count.

As the alternative for philosophical theories one ought to accept a common sense view.

Skype, but there really ought to be a less hackish solution for that anyway.

For kids shows to be really successful, they ought to engage the parents, too.

Someone who has to weigh chemicals or measure radiation ought to pick up accounting practices relatively easily.

In theory, the cross-selling of banking and insurance products ought to bring economies of scale, synergies and higher revenues.

And they ought to stop teaching their sons how to drink.

There ought to be millions of possible connections entering and leaving every country.

Politicians should say that conservation is where people's mindset ought to be.

And as an academic you ought to know that such matters are certainly germane to any discussion of academics.

The music promoter turned digital entrepreneur ought to know.

Maybe expectant mother ought to be given longer maternal leaves.

Nasdaq said it is adding some modifications that ought to make it easier for many companies to stay listed in the future.

Knudsen said she was told there were limits and consequences to free speech, and that someone as unhappy as she was ought to quit.

But before politicians unleash rhetorical hell on the financial sector and devise new taxes, they ought to think twice.

Things that ought to be easy and even pleasurable turn into momentous.

In principle, muscles with shorter fibres ought to exert less downward force, making those who have them less firm on their feet.

Whether or not the public ought to fund a scientific endeveour is always an ethical question, not a scientific one.

It ought to automatically qualify you to receive food stamps, really.

Such people ought to be interns or trainees in real businesses, not wasting time and money on a college campus.

It is based on notions that the public ought to know that a certain level of quality exists in the.

We ought to compare it to other first-world powerhouses.

The researchers believe the second material ought to work on red light as well.

If there's any in there, it ought to gas off pretty quickly.

The pursuit of knowledge for the benefit of mankind ought not be messed up or tarnished by individual glory.

For example, liquid helium-4 ought to be able to flow through a solid helium-4 barrier if that solid contains some supersolid.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun, adverb

aught¹.

noun

aught².

Link To ought

Collins

World English Dictionary

ought¹ (ɔːt)

—vb
1.	to indicate duty or obligation: you ought to pay your dues
2.	to express prudent expediency: you ought to be more careful with your money
3.	(usually with reference to future time) to express probability or expectation: you ought to finish this work by Friday
4.	to express a desire or wish on the part of the speaker: you ought to come next week

usage In correct English, ought is not used with did or had. I ought not to do it, not I didn't ought to do it; I ought not to have done it, not I hadn't ought to have done it

ought² (ɔːt)

—*pron, —adv*
	a variant spelling of aught

ought³ (ɔːt)

—n
	a less common word for nought

[C19: mistaken division of a nought as an ought; see nought]

aught or archaic, literary or (used with a negative or in conditional or interrogative sentences or clauses) ought¹ (ɔːt)

—*pron*
1.	anything at all; anything whatever (esp in the phrase for aught I know)

—*adv*
2.	dialect in any least part; to any degree

[Old English āwiht, from ā ever, ay¹ + wiht thing; see wight¹]

ought or archaic, literary or (used with a negative or in conditional or interrogative sentences or clauses) ought¹

—*pron*

—*adv*

[Old English āwiht, from ā ever, ay¹ + wiht thing; see wight¹]

aught or ought² (ɔːt)

—n
	a less common word for nought

ought or ought²

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

ought

O.E. ahte, pt. of agan "to own, possess, owe" (see owe). As a past tense of owe, it shared in that word's evolution and meant at times in M.E. "possessed" and "under obligation to pay." It has been detached from owe since 17c., though he aught me ten pounds is recorded as active

EXPAND

in E.Anglian dialect from c.1825. As an auxiliary verb expressing duty or obligation (c.1175, the main modern use), it represents the past subjunctive.

ought

"zero, cipher," 1844, probably a misdivision of a nought (see nought), meaning probably influenced by aught "anything" (q.v.).

COLLAPSE

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