chose

SayCHOHZ/t͡ʃoʊz/UK/t͡ʃəʊz/

Noun pluralchoses

4 meanings of chose

1
verb
Past tense of choose.
She chose a career in medicine over law.
The committee chose three finalists from hundreds of applicants.
Note
The everyday past form usually stands alone after its subject: she chose, they chose. Perfect and passive constructions switch to chosen (she has chosen, three finalists were chosen), so in standard English chose does not follow have or be. Every meaning of choose carries over unchanged: picking, electing, deciding to act, preferring. Putting chose after have is the nonstandard participle, heard in speech but marked in writing.
2
verbnonstandard
Past participle of choose. Nonstandard; the standard past participle is chosen.
By then we had chose the cheaper option.
They had chose to ignore the warning until it was too late.
Note
Today, have chose instead of have chosen marks speech as nonstandard, though the form once had literary standing. Milton writes "I have chose / This perfect Man" in Paradise Regain'd (1671). Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) gives it to a character talking in dialect: "you might have chose." In careful writing, keep chosen, because chose after have or had will read as a slip.
3
nouncountable
An item of personal property; a thing capable of being owned, whether physical goods or an enforceable right.
Like a single legal umbrella term covering both your physical belongings and the promises others owe you.
Under property law, a chose may be tangible goods or an intangible right like a debt.
The will transferred every chose to the surviving spouse.
Note
Law borrowed this word from Middle French chose, which goes back to Latin causa. That history makes it a doublet of cause. Lawyers sort choses into two kinds: a chose in possession is a thing physically held, and a chose in action is a right, such as a debt, that can be enforced only through legal proceedings. The noun shares its spelling, but not its history, with the past tense of choose.

Less common meaning

4
verbobsolete
Past tense of chuse.
Note
Older texts sometimes spell the verb chuse, an obsolete variant of choose. Its past tense is spelled chose either way, so a sentence like they chose their officers reads identically whichever spelling the writer preferred. Only the present tense and the infinitive reveal the old spelling: to chuse, he chuses.

chose is a form of choose

choose, verb: To pick someone or something from two or more possibilities, including someone for an office or position. Full entry

Forms: choosechooses he/she/itchoosing -ing formchose past tensechosen past participle
Spelling: choose → chose: irregular (no -ed)

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Origin

From Middle French chose, from Latin causa ("cause, reason"). It is a doublet of cause.