oughtn't

[ awt-nt ]

1. contraction of ought not.

Usage Note

See contraction, ought ¹.

Example Sentences

We can’t look away — and we oughtn’t, as she argued through the public display of her son’s body.

From New York Times

A recent article in the Nation highlighted changing attitudes on the political left of center: “Ceding central cities to homeless encampments,” it said, “oughtn’t to have become the default in cities up and down the West Coast.”

From Washington Post

“He oughtn’t be relieved of liability on the transparently false assertion that he believed his own self-serving fiction,” Bowman told me.

From Slate

Which I suppose just goes to show that one oughtn’t to leap to conclusions about what people mean, at least not without further conversation.

From New York Times

“You oughtn’t to be seen till the last minute, child.”

From Literature