In English, "nought" and "naught" mean zero or nothingness, whereas "ought" and "aught" (the former in its noun sense) strictly speaking mean "all" or "anything", and are not names for the number 0. "Nought" and "naught" versus "ought" and "aught" Fowler uses "cipher" to name the number 0. In his discussion of "naught" and "nought" in Modern English Usage (see below), H. One may refer to a person as being a "social cipher", but would name them "Mr. "Zero" is more commonly used in mathematics and science, whereas "cipher" is used only in a literary style. But via Spanish it became " cifra" and thence " cifre" in Old French, "cifră" in Romanian and "cipher" in modern English (and " chiffre" in modern French). Via Italian this became "zefiro" and thence "zero" in modern English, Portuguese, French, Catalan, Romanian and Italian ("cero" in Spanish). They are doublets, which means they have entered the language through different routes but have the same etymological root, which is the Arabic " صفر" (which transliterates as "sifr"). ![]() "Zero" and "cipher" are both names for the number 0, but the use of "cipher" for the number is rare and only literary in English today. Sporting terms are sometimes used as slang terms for zero, as are "nada", "zilch" and "zip". ![]() In certain contexts, zero and nothing are interchangeable, as is "null". For example, when dictating a telephone number, the series of digits "1070" may be spoken as "one zero seven zero" or as "one oh seven oh", even though the letter "O" on the telephone keypad in fact corresponds to the digit 6. However, in spoken English, the number 0 is often read as the letter " o" (" oh"). There is a need to maintain an explicit distinction between digit zero and letter O, which, because they are both usually represented in English orthography (and indeed most orthographies that use Latin script and Arabic numerals) with a simple circle or oval, have a centuries-long history of being frequently conflated. ![]() "Nil", "love", and "duck" are used by different sports for scores of zero. In American English "naught" is used occasionally for zero, but (as with British English) "naught" is more often used as an archaic word for nothing. In British English "nought" is also used. " Zero" is the usual name for the number 0 in English. "Zero" is the usual name for the number 0 in English
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