Choose
conj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The act of choosing; selection. Northern-England, Scotland, obsolete
- 2 The power, right, or privilege of choosing; election. Northern-England, Scotland, obsolete
- 1 To pick; to make the choice of; to select.
"I chose a nice ripe apple from the fruit bowl."
- 2 pick out, select, or choose from a number of alternatives wordnet
- 3 To elect.
"He was chosen as president in 1990."
- 4 select as an alternative over another wordnet
- 5 To decide to act in a certain way.
"I chose to walk to work today."
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 see fit or proper to act in a certain way; decide to act in a certain way wordnet
- 7 To prefer; to wish; to desire.
"The landlady now returned to know if we did not choose a more genteel apartment."
- 1 The binomial coefficient of the previous and following number.
"The number of distinct subsets of size k from a set of size n is tbinom nk or "n choose k"."
Example
More examples"You may choose either of the two books."
Etymology
From Middle English cheosen, 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 taste, choose”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵéwseti, from *ǵews- (“to taste, try”). Cognate with Scots chuise, cheese (“to choose”), North Frisian kese (“to choose”), Saterland Frisian kjoze (“to choose”), West Frisian kieze (“to choose”), Dutch kiezen (“to choose”), French choisir (“to choose”), Low German kesen (“to choose”), German Low German kiesen (“to pick, select”), archaic and partially obsolete German kiesen (“to choose”), Danish kyse (“to frighten (via ‘to charm, allure’ and ‘to enchant’)”), Norwegian kjose (“to choose”), Swedish tjusa (“to charm, allure, enchant”), Icelandic kjósa (“to choose, vote, elect”), Gothic 𐌺𐌹𐌿𐍃𐌰𐌽 (kiusan, “to test”), Latin gustō (“I taste, sample”), Ancient Greek γεύω (geúō, “to feed”), Sanskrit जोषति (jóṣati, “to like, enjoy”), Russian кушать (kúšatʹ, “to have a meal, to eat”).
From Middle English chose, chos, chooce, a Northern dialectal form of Middle English chois (“choice”). Cognate with Scots chose, choose, chuse (“choosing, choice, selection”). Doublet of choice, which see for more.
Related phrases
More for "choose"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.