CHOSE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CHOSEAuthored

The Law Mind • 1251 words

Definition

A chose (from the French word for "thing") is any item of personal property — a chattel personal. The term is primarily a classificatory word in property law, almost always appearing as part of a compound phrase rather than standing alone. Its legal significance lies in the distinction between its two principal forms:

1. Chose in possession: Tangible, movable personal property that is in a person's actual physical possession or control — furniture, livestock, goods, merchandise, and the like. The right to the thing and the enjoyment of it exist together in the hands of the owner.

2. Chose in action: A right to personal property that is not yet in the owner's possession and must be recovered or enforced through legal proceedings. Examples include debts, contract claims, negotiable instruments, and rights to damages in tort. The thing itself may not yet exist in any concrete form; what the owner holds is the legal right to pursue it.

Historical usage also recognized two narrower subcategories: a chose local (a thing annexed to a particular place, such as a mill) and a chose transitory (a movable thing capable of being carried from place to place). These subdivisions appear in early authority but have little modern currency.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A thing; personal property.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A thing; personal property. Webster's 1913 itself partially tracks the legal usage, defining chose in action as "a personal right to a thing not reduced to possession, but recoverable by suit at law."

The common and legal meanings are close, but the gap matters. In ordinary language, "chose" simply means a thing or item. In law, the word functions almost exclusively as a term of classification within personal property doctrine, carrying freight about the nature of a party's rights — whether they rest in present enjoyment or in a future legal claim. A layperson reading "chose" in an older document might read past it as mere filler; a property lawyer reads it as a signal about the character of the interest at stake.

Common Confusion

Chose is frequently encountered but infrequently misunderstood on its own — the real confusion attaches to its compounds. Chose in action is the term most prone to misreading, especially in historical sources where the category was broader than modern usage suggests. In early common law and equity, chose in action encompassed not only debt and contract claims but also rights to recover specific personal property wrongfully withheld. Modern usage has narrowed to money claims and intangible rights. Researchers who encounter "chose in action" in nineteenth-century materials should not assume the modern, narrowed meaning applies.

Chose in possession is sometimes conflated with ownership generally, but it is specifically limited to movable personal property in hand — real property is not a chose, and future interests or contingent rights are not choses in possession.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Chose in possession — tangible personal property in actual possession.
Chose in action — a personal right enforceable only through legal action; an intangible claim.
Chose local — a thing attached to a specific place (archaic; limited historical appearance).
Chose transitory — a movable thing (archaic; limited historical appearance).

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers will rarely need to look up "chose" in isolation — the term surfaces almost entirely within compound phrases, and the compound is what carries meaning. The primary navigational task is recognizing which compound you are dealing with and understanding that the boundaries of those compounds shifted over time.

For chose in action specifically: the historical corpus will reflect a substantially broader category than contemporary law recognizes. Equity courts in particular treated a wide range of interests — including some rights to specific chattels — as choses in action for purposes of assignment and enforcement. Assignments of choses in action had restricted enforceability at common law (the assignee could not sue in their own name) but were recognized in equity, and statutory reforms in England and the United States progressively altered this landscape through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A document referring to the assignment of a chose in action may require the researcher to establish which legal regime — common law, equity, or post-reform statute — governs the transaction.

The Law French origin of the word means it appears in older reports and pleading books in forms that may be unfamiliar: Burrill notes it was sometimes written choce in Law French sources. Variant spellings in early materials should not be treated as a different term.

Chose in possession is a more stable concept, but researchers should watch for its use as a contrast term — documents that categorize an interest as a chose in possession are implicitly arguing that no further legal action is needed to perfect the owner's right, a point that can be dispositive in conversion, trover, and related actions.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the basic definition. Black's (both editions), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Burrill all define chose as a chattel personal and note the binary of possession versus action. The agreement is nearly verbatim across sources, suggesting the core definition was well-settled by the time these dictionaries were compiled.

Rapalje & Lawrence is the most useful of the shelf sources here, providing the clearest articulation of the chose in possession / chose in action distinction and grounding it in Williams on Personal Property — a treatise that anchored nineteenth-century Anglo-American personal property doctrine. Black's 2nd edition adds the chose local and chose transitory subcategories with references to Kitchin, Cowell, and Blount — all early modern English legal authorities — flagging that these categories had deep historical roots even if they were already archaic by the time Black's was written.

What the historical dictionaries do not address is the doctrinal evolution of chose in action through equity and statute. They define the category but largely leave to other entries (chose in action specifically) the question of assignability and enforcement. Researchers looking for that history will need to follow the cross-references rather than treat this base entry as sufficient.

Jurisdictional Note

The term and its compounds are used across common law jurisdictions, but the legal rules governing choses in action — particularly their assignability and the standing of assignees to sue — vary by jurisdiction and by period. English Judicature Act reforms (1873–1875) and parallel American statutory changes altered common law restrictions on assignment, but the timing and scope of those changes differed. Researchers working across jurisdictions should not assume uniform rules even when the vocabulary is shared.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Personal Property; Chose in Action; Choses in Possession

CHOSEmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

A thing; an article of property. A chose is a chattel personal, (Williams, Pers. Prop. 4,) and is either in possession or in action.

CHOSEmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

(206) deeds. It was conclusive evidence of the fine. The officer who made the engrossment was called the "chirographer." Ley's Case, 5 Co. 39a; Wms. Seis. 107; Mad. Form. 217. See FINE. CHIROGRAPHER OF FINES.-See CHIROGRAPH, 2. Chirographum apud debitorem repertum præsumitur solutum: A deed found with the debtor is presumed to be paid. dle of Bucks from Tring in Hertfordshire to Henley in Oxfordshire. Formerly these hills were covered with thick beechwood, and sheltered numerous robbers; to put these marauders down, and protect the inhabitants of the neighborhood from their depredations, an officer was appointed under the crown, called the "Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds," which were Burnham, Desborough and Stoke. The clump of noble "Burnham Beeches" remains to remind us of the old stewardship duties. The crown, for the convenience of the house at large, is always ready to confer on any member "the Stewardship of Her Majesty's Chiltern Hundreds, the Stewardship tion of a surgeon. of the Manor of Poynings, of East Hendred and Northstead, or the Escheatorship of Munster," sinecures which he continues to hold till some other member solicits a similar accommodation. (Dod's Parl. Comp.; 2 Steph. Com. (7 edit.) 381.)-Wharton. (207) a "legal" chose in action can be received or claimed from a "trustee" is not easy to understand. The word "legal" is probably a mistake. (As to the reason for the old prohibition against assigning choses in action, see 2 Spence Eq. 850; Mr. F. Pollock on "The Personal Character of Obligations in English Law," Law Mag. 1874.) Every assignment not falling within the words of this enacting in a court of law, to procure the paythe legal right to the chose in action to ment of a sum of money-e. g. a bill of the assignee from the date of the notice, exchange, a policy of insurance (Ex-parte subject to any equities affecting it. How Ibbetson, 8 Ch. D. 519), an annuity (see Bro. Abr. 8. v.; Hargrave's note to Co. Litt. 144b; Dicey Part. 67; 2 Bl. Com. 389. A right of presentation to a benefice when the church is vacant is called in the old books a chose in action (Cro. Eliz. 174, 788); but this use of the word is obsolete. It is not impossible that chose in action originally denoted a right of doing something, and had no necessary connection with legal proceedings. See CHATTEL, 2), ment remains subject to the former rules; or a debt-or to recover pecuniary damages therefore, an absolute assignment of an for the infliction of a wrong or the nonequitable chose in action, or an assignment performance of a contract. (Wms. Pers. of a legal or equitable chose in action by Prop. 4; Wats. Comp. Eq. 328.) Origiway of charge, is effectual only in equity. nally the term was only applied to a right As, however, the High Court is bound to of action in the strict sense, that is, the give relief in all cases in which it would, right to bring an action at law, but subsequently it was extended to the right of taking proceedings in equity; thus, the right to take proceedings to recover a legacy, or to recover a trust fund which has been misapplied by the trustee, is an equitable chose in action. (Wms. 6; Pigott v. Stewart, W. N. (1875) 69.) The distinction is still of importance in Engassignment, expressly promises to pay the before the Judicature Act came into operation, have been given by a court of equity (224), the distinction between the two kinds of choses in action is not of practical importance, except, perhaps, with reference to the division of the court in which relief should be sought. In the United States, if the debtor, after notice of the land, as the provisions of the Judicature Act, relating to assignment of choses in action, are limited to legal choses in action. Infra, 23. Judicature Act, 1873, 88 24, 25. 33. Assignment.-Formerly choses in action were of two classes, namely, those which were assignable at law, and those which were only assignable in equity, Originally the only choses in action assignable at law were bills of exchange and similar negotiable instruments. Most other choses in action were only assignable by the device of allowing the assignee to sue in the name of the assignor. Debts and equitable choses in action were assignable in equity; but it was necessary for the assignee to give notice of the assignment to the debtor or trustee in order to preserve his priority. (See ASSIGNMENT, 4.) In England, by the Judicature Act, 1873, Section 25, 26, any absolute assignment of a legal chose in action, followed by express notice in writing to the debtor, trustee or other person from whom the chose in action is due, operates to pass debt to the assignee, the latter may then sue in his own name, unless the assignment of the chose in action in question is contrary to some statute or to public policy. Without notice to the debtor and such promise to pay, the assignee (even a bona fide assignee without notice) generally takes subject to all existing equities between the original parties, except in the case of the assignment of negotiable instruments. In many of the States, bonds, mortgages and other instruments may be assigned so as to pass the legal as well as the equitable title to the assignee, and by the adoption of such statutes and the several codes of practice, the old common law doctrine as to the assignment of choses in action has been materially departed from. See the statutes and codes of the several States. 24. Reversionary. - Choses in action are of two classes, those which are immediately reducible into possession (see REDUCTION INTO POSSESSION), and those which are reversionary, such as a reversionary

CHOSEn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A thing; personal property. Chose in action, a thing of which one has not possession or actual enjoyment, but only a right to it, or a right to demand it by action at law, and which does not exist at the time in specie; a personal right to a thing not reduced to possession, but recoverable by suit at law; as a right to recover money due on a contract, or damages for a tort, which can not be enforced against a reluctant party without suit.  -- Chose in possession, a thing in possession, as distinguished from a thing in action.  -- Chose local, a thing annexed to a place, as a mill.  -- Chose transitory, a thing which is movable. Cowell. Blount.

CHOSEn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

imp. & p. p. of Choose.

chosenoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A thing; personal property.

choseverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

simple past of choose | past participle of choose | simple past of chuse

CHOSEnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Acronym of confidence, hope, optimism, subjective well-being, and emotional intelligence.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

Subscribe Encyclopedia Sign In