different between oughts vs nineties

English

Alternative forms

• 'oughts
• aughts

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??ts/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??ts/

Noun

oughts

1. plural of ought
2. The first decade of a century, such as the 1900s, 2000 to 2009, etc, where the digit in the tens place is zero.
   • 1919, Harry Hamilton Johnston, The Gay-Dombeys: A Novel, Macmillan, page 172,

     He and his clever staff of minor blackguards exploited to the full every weakness and caries in the London Society of the 'eighties, 'nineties, and 'oughts.

   • 2000, John Maxtone-Graham, Liners to the Sun, Sheridan House, Inc., ?ISBN, page xii,

     And for the oughts—by which I suppose we must identify our new millennium's first decade—projected tonnage figures keep up the mind-boggling pace.

   • 2006, Mark Steyn, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, Regnery Publishing, ?ISBN, page 13,

     The "experts" of the Western world are slower to turn around than an ocean liner, and in Europe they were still yakking about the "population explosion" even as their 1970s schoolhouses, built in anticipation of traditional Catholic birth rates, were emptying through the nineties and oughts.

Synonyms

• noughties
• 2000s

See also

• nineties
• teens, tens

Anagrams

• Stough, sought, toughs

English

Alternative forms

• (decade): 90s, '90s, Nineties

Noun

nineties pl (plural only)

1. plural of ninety
2. The decade of the 1890s, 1990s, etc.
   • 1919, Harry Hamilton Johnston, The Gay-Dombeys: A Novel, Macmillan, page 172,

     He and his clever staff of minor blackguards exploited to the full every weakness and caries in the London Society of the 'eighties, 'nineties, and 'oughts.

3. The decade of one's life from age 90 through age 99.
4. (temperature, rates, plural only) The range between 90 and 99.

Synonyms

• 90s, Nineties
• 1990s

Derived terms

• Gay Nineties
• Naughty Nineties

Translations

See also

• nonagenarian

Adjective

nineties (not comparable)

1. From or evoking the 91st through 100th years of a century (chiefly the 1990s).

   I found myself attracted to his mullet even though it struck me as needlessly nineties.

Anagrams

• Einstein, einstein

French

Noun

nineties f pl (plural only)

1. nineties (decade)