▪ I. ‖ chose, n.
(ʃoz)
[a. F. chose:—L. causa matter, affair, thing.]
1. Law. A thing, chattel, piece of property (in chose in action, etc.: see quot. 1670, 1875).
| 1670 Blount Law Dict., Chose in action, is a thing incorporeal and onely a right, as an annuity, obligation for Debt, —and generally all Causes of Suit for any Debt or Duty, Trespass or Wrong, are to be accounted Choses in action. 1767 Blackstone Comm. II. 397 Thus money due on a bond is a chose in action. 1853 Wharton Pennsylv. Digest 168 Choses in action of the wife cannot be attached for the husband's debt. 1875 Poste Gaius iv. (ed. 2) 611 Choses in possession (movables) and choses in action (obligations) may be sold after the institution of a suit. |
† 2. An excuse. Obs.
| 15.. Plumpton Corr. 198, I have sent to Wright of Idell for the money..and he saith he hath it not to len, and makes choses, and so I can get none nowhere. |
† 3. Thing (as a general term for a thing not more particularly named). Obs.
| c 1386 Chaucer Wife's Prol. 447. 1398 Trevisa Barth. de P.R. xvi. xxxix. (Tollem. MS.) And sumwhat passeþ of þe priue chose [1535 privy chose] of woman. |
4. chose jugée (ʒyʒe) [Fr.], a matter which has been formally adjudicated and decided and which it is therefore idle or presumptuous to discuss.
| 1898 Daily News 22 Mar. 6/1 The new doctrine of the sacredness of the ‘chose jugée’. 1913 Mrs. H. Ward Mating of Lydia xii. 250 We will not..argue the matter, which is for me a chose jugée. 1938 Times Lit. Suppl. 12 Nov. 721/2 One gets the impression of too much repetition, and rather too much ado about choses jugées. |
▪ II. † chose, ppl. a.
obs. f. chosen: see choose v.
| 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 38 A discreetly chose object. 1714 Byrom Rem. (1854) I. i. 23 When the new chose Fellows go from our table. |
▪ III. chose
pa. tense of choose v., and var. choose n.