Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Ought
Ought
,imp.
, p.
p.
, or auxiliary1.
Was or were under obligation to pay; owed.
[Obs.]
This due obedience which they
ought
to the king. Tyndale.
The love and duty I long have
ought
you. Spelman.
[He] said . . . you
ought
him a thousand pound. Shakespeare
2.
Owned; possessed.
[Obs.]
The knight the which that castle
ought
. Spenser.
3.
To be bound in duty or by moral obligation.
We then that are strong
ought
to bear the infirmities of the weak. Rom. xv. 1.
4.
To be necessary, fit, becoming, or expedient; to behoove; – in this sense formerly sometimes used impersonally or without a subject expressed.
“Well ought us work.” Chaucer.
To speak of this as it
ought
, would ask a volume. Milton.
Ought
not Christ to have suffered these things? Luke xxiv. 26.
☞ Ought is now chiefly employed as an auxiliary verb, expressing fitness, expediency, propriety, moral obligation, or the like, in the action or state indicated by the principal verb.
Both words imply obligation, but ought is the stronger. Should may imply merely an obligation of propriety, expendiency, etc.; ought denotes an obligation of duty.