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choose

UK/t͡ʃuːz/US/t͡ʃuz/
verbA12 meaningsVery common — you will meet it every day · #774 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: chosen, chose, choosing, chooses

To choose is to take one thing from several possibilities. Choose a card, choose between two jobs, you may choose whichever you like. It is irregular: choose, chose, chosen.

The spelling of the forms is the hurdle: choose has two o's, chose has one, and chosen has one. The pronunciation follows — CHOOZE, CHOZE, CHOZEN. Note choose between two things and choose from a larger set, which is a real distinction and a common error. Choosy is the informal adjective for somebody hard to please, and there is no choicer or choosier ranking of the two words — choice is the noun, and choosy is not related to it in meaning.

Definitions of choose

  1. 1verbchooseTo take one thing from several possibilities.A1

    “She chose the blue one without hesitating.”

    synonyms: pick, select, opt for

  2. 2verbdecideTo decide to do something.A2

    “He chose to say nothing at all.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

choose is a way of deciding.

Also accepted in games: pick, select

Phrases it lives in

  • nothing to choose between them — the two options are so alike that the decision does not matter

Where it comes from

Old English ceosan comes from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to taste or test — the same root that gives choice by way of French, and gustatory by way of Latin. Choosing was originally sampling, and both English words for it carry that.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *ǵews-

  2. Proto-Indo-European

    *ǵéwseti — to choose, taste

  3. Proto-Germanic

    *keusaną — to test; to choose

  4. Proto-West Germanic

    *keusan

  5. Old English

    ċēosan — to choose, seek out, select, elect, decide, test, accept, settle for, approve

  6. Middle English

    chesen

  7. English, today

    choose

Built from

  • *ǵews- · Proto-Indo-European — to taste, try

From Middle English chesen, from Old English ċēosan (“to choose, seek out, select, elect, decide, test, accept, settle for, approve”), from Proto-West Germanic keusan, from Proto-Germanic keusaną (“to test; to choose”), from Proto-Indo-European ǵéwseti (“to choose, taste”), from ǵews- (“to taste, try”). 2 Cognate with stq kjoze (“to choose”), West Frisian kieze (“to choose”), Dutch kiezen (“to choose”), Low German kesen (“to choose”), German kiesen (“to choose”), Danish kyse (“to frighten”), Faroese and Icelandic kjósa (“to vote; to elect; to choose; to prefer”), Norwegian Nynorsk kjosa, kjose (“to choose”), Swedish tjusa (“to charm; to bewitch”), Gothic 𐌺𐌹𐌿𐍃𐌰𐌽 (“to test”), French choisir (“to choose”); also Breton diuz (“to choose”), kw and Welsh dewis (“to choose”), Latin gustō (“to taste, sample”), Ancient Greek γεύω (“to feed; to taste; to eat; to try; to enjoy”), Czech zkoušet (“to taste; to examine; to rehearse”), Polish kuszać (“to eat”), Russian кушать (“to have a meal, to eat”), Serbo-Croatian ку̏шати, kȕšati (“to taste; to test”), Ukrainian ку́шати (“to taste; to eat”), куштува́ти (“to taste”), ae 𐬰𐬀𐬊𐬱𐬀 (“pleasure”), bal and ps دوست (“friend”), kmr and zza dost (“friend”), Persian دوسْت (“friend; boyfriend or girlfriend; loved”), Sanskrit जुषते (“to enjoy”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Everyday Verbs

Practise this word

choose in the wild

  • Gamebooks are sometimes called choose your own adventure books or CYOA (after the influential Choose Your Own Adventure series originally published by US company Bantam Books) or pick-a-paths.

    Gamebook

  • The latitude a student has in choosing courses varies from program to program.

    Academic major

  • Students may also choose to work to save up money, either to fund their gap year activities or to prepare for future educational and personal expenses.

    Gap year

  • The extra runway allowed the aircraft to land and take off as close as possible into the wind, with eight directions to choose from.

    RNAS Burscough

  • Statements of political liberty, such as the United States Bill of Rights, assume moral liberty: the ability to choose to do otherwise than what one does.

    Compatibilism

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.