Definition
To choose, in legal contexts, means to make a deliberate selection among available options with legal consequences attached to that selection. The act carries formal weight when it appears in instruments, statutes, or procedural rules: a party who chooses a remedy, a legatee who chooses among bequeathed items, or a voter who chooses a representative each performs a legally operative act. The term does not have a technical definition of its own in most legal dictionaries — both Bouvier's and Anderson's redirect it to cognate terms (CHOSE and ELECT, respectively) that carry more precise doctrinal content.
As a standalone legal verb, "choose" functions as the plain-English equivalent of "elect" in many statutes and instruments. It signals the exercise of a right or privilege of selection, and the legal significance flows from context: what is being chosen, by whom, and what consequences the instrument or law attaches to that choice.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of choosing; selection. The power, right, or privilege of choosing; election.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To make choice of; to select; to take by way of preference from two or more objects offered; to elect. Also colloquially, to wish or prefer.
The common meaning and the legal meaning are not sharply opposed, but the legal context adds a layer the common definition omits: in law, choosing is frequently irrevocable, constrained by the structure of the instrument or rule at issue, and may trigger estoppel or waiver consequences. A casual preference can be changed; a legal choice, once made and acted upon, often cannot.
Common Confusion
CHOOSE / ELECT / APPOINT: These three terms overlap significantly in ordinary usage but diverge in legal precision. ELECT carries formal procedural weight — electing a remedy, electing against a will — and implies a structured, often binary choice with specific legal consequences. APPOINT typically involves the exercise of a power of appointment, designating a person to fill a role or receive property under authority granted by another. CHOOSE is the least technically constrained of the three and most often appears in statutes and instruments as its plain-language stand-in for "elect." Researchers who encounter "choose" in a historical instrument should consider whether the drafter intended the full doctrinal force of "elect" or was simply using accessible language.
CHOOSE / CHOSE: The similarity in spelling creates a persistent source of confusion in legal texts. CHOSE (from the French for "thing") is a term of art in personal property law referring to an item of personal property, especially a chose in action (a right to sue) or a chose in possession (tangible personal property in hand). The two terms are etymologically unrelated in English legal usage. In older printed sources, typeface inconsistencies and period spelling variation can make the distinction visually ambiguous.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus will rarely find CHOOSE treated as a headword with substantive doctrinal content. Its importance is navigational: when you encounter the word in a statute, will, deed, or procedural rule, the operative question is which more precise legal concept it is standing in for.
Bouvier's redirect to CHOSE signals that in some historical sources the two words were treated as variants or were confused by compositors. Anderson's redirect to ELECT signals that the operative legal doctrine — election of remedies, election against a will, equitable election — is where the research should go.
In historical sources, "choose" appears frequently in constitutional and statutory texts (e.g., provisions granting legislatures the power to "choose" officers) where the modern equivalent would be "elect" or "appoint." The choice of word in the original document can itself be a matter of interpretive significance, particularly in constitutional history research.
Corpus trap: Do not assume that every instance of "choose" in a historical legal document is merely informal. When a testator grants a legatee the right to "choose" among items, that language may be interpreted as creating an option or a power of selection with the full consequences of equitable election attached, depending on jurisdiction and period.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Bouvier's and Anderson's decline to define CHOOSE on its own terms. Bouvier's redirects to CHOSE (the property law term), which may reflect a historical tendency to treat the English verb as insufficiently technical to warrant independent treatment, or may simply reflect an editorial choice to consolidate related terms. Anderson's redirect to ELECT points researchers toward the richer doctrinal territory where the act of choosing has formal legal consequences.
Neither dictionary captures the statutory usage of "choose" as a plain-language synonym for "elect" in governance contexts, which is a gap researchers should note. The historical dictionaries are most useful here as negative evidence: the absence of a substantive entry confirms that "choose" was understood as a common-language term whose legal force derived entirely from context.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: ELECTION (REMEDIES); ELECTION (WILLS); CHOSE IN ACTION