ought的词源

英文词源

ought: ought: [OE] Ought began life as the past tense of owe, but the two have perged widely over the centuries. The Old English ancestor of owe was āgan, and its past form was āhte. This originally shared all the meanings of its parent verb, of course, and continued to do so well into the 17th century (‘He said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound’, Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV 1596). Indeed, it survived dialectally until comparatively recently. But steadily since the 1600s its role as a quasi-modal auxiliary verb, denoting ‘obligation’, has come to the fore.
=> owe
ought (v.): Old English ahte "owned, possessed," past tense of agan "to own, possess, owe" (see owe). As a past tense of owe, it shared in that word's evolution and meant at times in Middle English "possessed" and "under obligation to pay." It has been detached from owe since 17c., though he aught me ten pounds is recorded as active in East Anglian dialect from c. 1825. As an auxiliary verb expressing duty or obligation (late 12c., the main modern use), it represents the past subjunctive.
ought (n.): "zero, cipher," 1844, probably a mispision of a nought (see nought; for mispision, see N); meaning probably influenced by aught "anything."

来自古英语ahte,拥有的，所有的，来自agan的过去分词，拥有，所有，词源同own,owe.后词义由拥有的引申为有义务去支付或偿还，并最终在语法上演变成虚拟情态动词。

该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：ought 词源，ought 含义。