nought

plural noughts · alternative naught · alternative nowt

1. A thing or person of no worth or value; nil.
2. Not any quantity of number; zero; the score of no points in a game.

   0.335 cm is nought/zero point three three five of a centimeter.

3. The figure or character representing, or having the shape of, zero.

alternative naught · alternative nowt

1. obsoleteGood for nothing; worthless.

   It is nought, it is nought (saith the buyer:) but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 20:14

   Synonyms: good-for-naught, no good, valueless, bastardly, blown, cacky, chaffy, cocking

2. Wicked, immoral.

   Synonyms: depraved, iniquitous, unscrupulous, aberrant, corrupt, corrupted, depraved, lost

present singular third person noughts · participle present noughting · participle past noughted · past noughted · alternative naught · alternative nowt

1. To abase, to set at nought.

   Your usefulness is zero, your worth zero, and as zero you deserve to be treated as nothing, and in the extreme, noughted.

   2001, William Desmond, Ethics and the Between, page 507

   3 more examples

   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;)

   1393, Julian of Norwich, translated by Grace Warrack, Revelations of Divine Love, published 1901

   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.

   1983, Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, page 25

   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.

   2003, Wu Wei Wei, The Tenth Man: The Great Joke (which Made Lazarus Laugh), →ISBN, page 81

alternative naught · alternative nowt

1. To no extent; in no way; not at all.
2. Not.

alternative naught · alternative nowt

1. Nothing; zero.