ought

  • modal verb (3rd sing. present and past ought) 1 used to indicate duty or correctness. 2 used to indicate something that is probable. 3 used to indicate a desirable or expected state. 4 used to give or ask advice.

  — USAGE The standard construction for the negative is he ought not to have gone. The constructions he didn’t ought to have gone and he hadn’t ought to have gone are found in dialect but are not acceptable in standard modern English. The reason for this is that the verb ought is a modal verb and therefore behaves differently from ordinary verbs in certain constructions, such as the formation of a negative.

  — ORIGIN Old English.

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