Choose

How to spell choose

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce choose

What does choose mean?

1. verbTo pick or select one option from several possibilities.

Choose in a sentence

• You can choose between the morning and afternoon appointment.

• Customers may choose any colour from the catalogue at no extra cost.

Where does choose come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Choose descends from the Old English verb ceosan, which meant to select, to taste, or to try out, and it belongs to the native Germanic core of English rather than to any classical borrowing. The same root runs right across the old Germanic languages, surfacing in Old High German kiosan and Old Norse kjosa, all carrying the sense of picking something after testing it. An interesting trace of that older flavour survives in the noun choice and in the slightly archaic past form chose, which is why writers so often muddle the present tense choose with the past tense chose. The double o spelling settled into English to mark the long oo sound, and it is exactly that doubled vowel that trips people who write a single o. Worth remembering too is the homophone chews, the everyday verb about teeth, which sounds identical but shares none of this history.

How the word is built

• choose (from Old English ceosan: to select, taste, try)