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PlainSpell

choose

/t͡ʃuz/verb, conjunction

choose is spelled C-H-O-O-S-E: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 81 times per million words in written English, the 1,302nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “choose vs chose” about 40,500 times a month (Google, United States). As a verb, choose means “To pick; to make the choice of; to select” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in choose?

Letters6: C-H-O-O-S-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing81 times per million words; the 1,302nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is choose?

Choose appears 81 times per million words in written English, the 1,302nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce choose?

  • UK /t͡ʃuːz/
  • US /t͡ʃuz/
  • Australia /ʃʉːz/

Choose has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-choose.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with choose

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

choose vs chose40,500 G

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with choose?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as choose from its last stressed vowel (/uz/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of choose

  • chooses present, singular, he/she/it
  • choosing participle, present
  • chose past, participle, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • chosen participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does choose mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To pick; to make the choice of; to select.

    I chose a nice ripe apple from the fruit bowl.

  2. 2

    To elect.

    He was chosen as president in 1990.

  3. 3

    To decide to act in a certain way.

    I chose to walk to work today.

  4. 4

    To prefer; to wish; to desire.

conjunction

  1. 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".

noun

  1. 1

    ScotlandobsoleteThe act of choosing; selection.

  2. 2

    ScotlandobsoleteThe power, right, or privilege of choosing; election.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Choose in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchchoisir (to pick), élire (to elect), décider (to decide to act in a certain way)
Germanwählen, auswählen (to pick), entscheiden (to decide to act in a certain way)
Portugueseescolher (to pick)
Spanishescoger, escogitar (to pick)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does choose come from?

From Middle English 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 test; to choose”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵéwseti (“to choose, taste”), from *ǵews- (“to taste, try”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after choose