Ought vs Had - What's the difference?
ought | had |
(obsolete) (owe)
* 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , Luke VII:
*, Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, p.182:
(auxiliary) Indicating duty or obligation.
(auxiliary) Indicating advisability or prudence.
(auxiliary) Indicating desirability.
(auxiliary) Indicating likelihood or probability.
* , chapter=3
, title= anything
* Bishop Joseph Hall
at all, to any degree.
A statement of what ought to be the case as contrasted with what is the case.
* {{quote-book, year=1996, title=The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense, author=Mortimer Jerome Adler
, passage=There are value judgments that are not reducible to observable matters of fact, and there are oughts that cannot be construed as hypothetical and, therefore, cannot be converted into statements of fact.
* {{quote-book, year=2004, title=Truth Matters: Essays in Honor of Jacques Maritain, author=Jacques Maritain, John G. Trapani
, passage=Is there a fallacy involved in deriving an ought from a set of exclusively factual or descriptive premises?
(have)
*1814 , Jane Austen, Mansfield Park :
*:About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton.
(auxiliary) Used to form the pluperfect tense, expressing a completed action in the past (+ past participle).
*2011 , Ben Cooper, The Guardian , 15 April:
*:Cooper seems an odd choice, but imagine if they had taken MTV's advice and chosen Robert Pattinson?
As past subjunctive: ‘would have’.
*1499 , (John Skelton), The Bowge of Courte :
*:To holde myne honde, by God, I had grete payne; / For forthwyth there I had him slayne, / But that I drede mordre wolde come oute.
*, II.4:
*:Julius Cæsar had escaped death, if going to the Senate-house, that day wherein he was murthered by the Conspirators, he had read a memorial which was presented unto him.
*1849 , , In Memoriam , 24:
*:If all was good and fair we met, / This earth had been the Paradise / It never look’d to human eyes / Since our first Sun arose and set.
As verbs the difference between ought and had
is that ought is (obsolete) (owe) or ought can be (auxiliary) indicating duty or obligation while had is (have).As a pronoun ought
is anything .As an adverb ought
is at all, to any degree.As a noun ought
is a statement of what ought to be the case as contrasted with what is the case or ought can be cipher, zero, nought.ought
English
Etymology 1
(etyl)Verb
(head)- There was a certayne lender, which had two detters, the one ought five hondred pence, and the other fifty.
- witnesse Aristippus , who being urged with the affection he ought his children, as proceeding from his loynes, began to spit.
Verb
(head)Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price.}}
Usage notes
* Ought'' is an auxiliary verb; it takes a following verb as its complement. This verb may appear either as a full infinitive (such as "to go") or a bare infinitive (such as simple "go"), depending on region and speaker; the same range of meanings is possible in either case. Additionally, it's possible for ''ought not to take any complement, in which case a verb complement is implied, as in, "You really ought to [do so]." * The negative of ought'' is either ''ought not (to)'' or ''oughtn't (to)Synonyms
* should (In all senses)See also
* ought to *Pronoun
(English Pronouns)- Is it a small benefit, that I am placed there where I see no drunken comessations, no rebellious routs, no violent oppressions, no obscene rejoicings, nor ought else that might either vex or affright my soul?
Adverb
(-)See also
* aught * naught * noughtNoun
(en noun)citation
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