From 'naught' (nothing) — originally 'possessing nothing,' escalated to 'wicked,' then collapsed to a mild reproof.
Mildly badly behaved, especially of a child; slightly improper or risqué.
From Middle English 'naughty,' derived from 'naught' (nothing), itself from Old English 'nāwiht' ('nā' meaning 'no' + 'wiht' meaning 'thing, creature'). 'Naughty' originally meant 'having nothing, poor, destitute' — literally 'naught-y,' possessing naught. It then shifted to 'morally bad, wicked, evil' in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — a serious accusation. Shakespeare used it to describe genuinely wicked people and corrupt worlds. Its trivialization to 'mildly misbehaving' happened in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
In Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice,' Portia says 'How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world' — and she means a genuinely wicked, corrupt world, not a mildly misbehaving one. 'Naughty' was a serious word in the sixteenth century, used for moral corruption and evil. Its collapse into a mild reproof for children who won't eat