choosing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of choose.

   He kept choosing the safest route home each night.

   Choosing a career path is one of life's bigger decisions.

   Note

   One -ing form does two jobs here. After be or keep it carries ongoing action (he kept choosing the safest route). As a gerund it names that action while still taking its object directly (choosing a career path). It covers every sense of choose, including deciding to act, as in choosing to stay. Once it takes of or a plural ending, it has become the noun for the act.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of making a choice or selection.

   The choosing of a new leader took several rounds of voting.

   Her careful choosing of every ingredient made the meal memorable.

   Similarselection, choice, picking

   Note

   A noun that can take a plural. Kern Alexander and M. David Alexander's American Public School Law (2011) says parents "have a choice among private schools" but that "their choosings are not normally supported by public funds." The pairing shows the difference. Choice is the range of options open to someone, and choosings are the separate acts of picking from it, one for each decision.

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