From the sense of aught to refer to the number zero.
Meanings
(not-comparable) From or evoking the first decade of a century (chiefly the 2000s).
Meyer and his team collected the participants in a very aughts way — through Craigslist. 2017 March 22, Tanya Basu, “Scientists figured out a big mystery about smell”, in Inverse, retrieved 14 Jun 2021:
Dialup internet is so aughts.
He's testing out new experiments with knotting and macramé too, tying up dresses and trousers for a look that feels very aughts—and very now. 2020 October 19, Steff Yotka, “Dion Lee: Spring 2021 Ready-to-Wear”, in Vogue, retrieved 14 Jun 2021:
From the sense of aught to refer to the number zero.
Meanings
(plural, plural-only) The first decade of a century, such as 1900 to 1909 or 2000 to 2009, whose digit in the tens place is zero; the noughties.
In the late 1990s and early aughts, at the beginning of the anti-human trafficking movement, people did use the term child prostitution. 2025 November 21, Kate Price, “‘Jeffrey Epstein is not unique’: What his case reveals about the realities of child sex trafficking”, in The Guardian:
When the staccato, Neptunes-ian single “Boyfriend” was released in March, musical prognosticators were quick to peg the album it portended, Believe, as Justin Bieber’s Justified, a grown-and-sexy, R&B-centric departure that evolved millennial teenybopper Justin Timberlake into one of the unifying pop-music figures of the aughts. 2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 06 Aug 2020:
Holy nostalgic flashback, Batman! Aly and AJ Michalka, the actor-musician sister duo known for dominating Radio Disney in the late aughts (they’ve also released some very good music since then), just sent us straight back to our tweens by wearing none other than iconic mall brand Limited Too. 2024 July 1, Elizabeth Logan, “Aly & AJ in the New Limited Too Collection Has Me Checking What Year It Is”, in Glamour:
The 20th Century’s Aughts and Teens: OPERETTA [chapter title] 2010, Michael G. Cunningham, “The 20th Century’s Aughts and Teens: OPERETTA”, in Gilded Songs (Berlin to Bacharach): The Gig Instrumentalist’s Guide to the Golden Era of American Popular Song (1920 to 1979):