Choose or chose?
chose is the simple past of choose. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) choose is about 2.3 times as common as chose.
What is the difference between choose and chose?
| choose | chose | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, conjunction, noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To pick; to make the choice of; to select To elect The binomial coefficient of the previous and following number | simple past of choose A thing; personal property |
| Example | I chose a nice ripe apple from the fruit bowl | none recorded |
| Forms | chooses, choosing, chose, chosen | none |
| Pronunciation | /t͡ʃuːz/ /t͡ʃuz/ /ʃʉːz/ | /t͡ʃəʊz/ /t͡ʃoʊz/ |
| In writing | 81 times per million words | 35 times per million words |
Sources: choose and chose in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of choose and chose
choose
- 1
To pick; to make the choice of; to select
I chose a nice ripe apple from the fruit bowl
- 2
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"
- 3
To elect
He was chosen as president in 1990
- 4
To decide to act in a certain way
I chose to walk to work today
- 5
To prefer; to wish; to desire
chose
- 1
A thing; personal property
- 2
Acronym of confidence, hope, optimism, subjective well-being, and emotional intelligence
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, choose or chose?
choose appears 81 times per million words; chose 35 times per million words.
choose 81 times per million wordschose 35 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search choose vs chose?
“choose vs chose” is searched about 40,500 times a month on Google and 1,120 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“chose vs choose”, “choose or chose”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.