noughties

alternative Noughties · alternative Naughties · alternative naughties

1. UKcapitalizedpluralplural onlysometimesThe decade consisting of the last year of the previous century and the first nine years of the next: from 1900 to 1909, 2000 to 2009, etc.

   Every young woman with "advanced" ideas must live in Paris during the decade of the "noughties," as they were dubbed by some wit.

   1966, Jean Gould, Modern American playwrights, page 30

   3 more examples

   Our readers — and contributors — are apt to elect a good deal according to years. The seventies and eighties, we may suppose, are concerned for the large educational and cultural interests of their Alma Mater; the nineties are deep in the practical and business activities; the noughties are not naughty, but still young enough to sport a fantastic costume at reunion and let the college wag as it will; the oneties are the really wise as to what the college ought to be, especially on its athletic side, but as contributors modest.

   1914, Amherst College, “Amherst graduates' quarterly”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 4, page 6

   I doubt if any modern poet can boast of as loud acclaim or as liberal reward as Longfellow received for Evangeline or Tennyson for the Idylls, but his fate today is somewhat kinder than that of Poe or Whitman, and much gentler than the stony dole dealt out to poets in the nineties and noughties.

   1933, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, volume 43, Chicago, page 36

   During the Naughty Noughties, Jim was worth between ten and twelve million dollars and his income was more than even he could reasonably spend.

   1934, Parker Morell, Diamond Jim: The Life and Times of James Buchanan Brady, page 219

   Synonyms: the 2000s, the 1900s, the aughts, oughts, the zeroes, Zeroes, the '00s

1. pluralplural onlyAlternative letter-case form of noughties.