ought

«ought» in Mova's early modern english dictionary: should; must — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 4 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

kind

archaic sense

modern equivalent

should; must

part of speech

verb (old noun sense: anything, from "aught")

meaning for a pupil

Should, or was right to; the old noun sense (anything) is no longer used. tree →

how it differs from today

The sentences use the modern verb sense (should), so the old meaning "anything" is not shown here.

examples

• Let us work as we ought.” (The Blue Fairy Book) tree →
• "What ought we to do?" said Effie. (The Book of Dragons) tree →
• He ought to be a happy man. (Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen) tree →

tests

manual 3; corpora 366 (Torah 2, tales 364, Sefer Yetzirah 0); EWT 1; ratio 13.8 (Torah alone 1.6); Wiktionary no archaic label

In the corpora

• «Then it ought to be Number One,» says Alice — and the King turns pale and shuts his book.
• I ought to stick by Toad till this trip is ended.
• Badger «never said, “I told you so”» or that they ought to have done something else.
• Duties are things we ought to do for others, such as respecting their rights and helping.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «ought» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.