oughts

English

Alternative forms

• aughts

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /ɔːts/
• (US) IPA: /ɑːts/

Noun

oughts pl.

1. Plural form of ought.
2. A decade such as that from 1900 to 1909 C.E., or 2000 to 2009, where the digit in the tens place is zero.
   • 1919, Harry Hamilton Johnston, The Gay-Dombeys: A Novel, Macmillan, page 172,

     He and his clever staff of minor blackguards exploited to the full every weakness and caries in the London Society of the 'eighties, 'nineties, and 'oughts.

   • 2000, John Maxtone-Graham, Liners to the Sun, Sheridan House, Inc., ISBN 1574091077, page xii,

     And for the oughts—by which I suppose we must identify our new millennium's first decade—projected tonnage figures keep up the mind-boggling pace.

   • 2006, Mark Steyn, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, Regnery Publishing, ISBN 0895260786, page 13,

     The "experts" of the Western world are slower to turn around than an ocean liner, and in Europe they were still yakking about the "population explosion" even as their 1970s schoolhouses, built in anticipation of traditional Catholic birth rates, were emptying through the nineties and oughts.

Anagrams

• sought
• toughs