Other forms: options
An option is one of the things you may choose. Keep your options open, the best option, no other option.
In finance an option is the right to buy or sell at a set price without the obligation, which is what makes it valuable — you use it only if it suits. Keeping options open has a real cost, since deciding late means acting late. Note opt, and that the Latin means a choosing.
1nounoptionOne of the things you may choose.
“You have two options: pay the fine now or go to court.”
2nounrightA right to buy or sell at a set price.
“The company gave her the option to buy shares at a fixed price.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
option is a choice.
Latin optio means a choice, from optare, to choose. Opt, adopt and optimum come from the same choosing.
Latin
optiō — choice; option; act of choosing
French
option
English, today
option
Built from
From French option, from Latin optiō (“choice; option; act of choosing”), from optō (“to choose, select”). Equivalent to opt + -ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA