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The power of choosing; the right of choice or election; an alternative. There is an option left to the United States of America, whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptible and miserable, as a nation. Washington.

Involving an option; depending on the exercise of an option; left to one's discretion or choice; not compulsory; as, optional studies; it is optional with you to go or stay. -- n.

o London or to Windsor. It often connects a series of words or propositions, presenting a choice of either; as, he may study law, or medicine, or divinity, or he may enter into trade. If man's convenience, health, Or safety interfere, his rights and claims Are paramount. Cowper.

A permitted choice; a rhetorical figure in which a thing is committed to the decision of one's opponent. [Obs.] Milton.

To choose; to select; to separate as choice or desirable; to cull; as, to pick one's company; to pick one's way; -- often with out. "One man picked out of ten thousand." Shak.

The sailor's choice (Diplodus, or Lagodon, rhomboides).

What the will dictates or prefers as gratifying or satisfying; hence, will; choice; wish; purpose. "He will do his pleasure on Babylon." Isa. xlviii. 14. Use your pleasure; if your love do not presuade you to come, let not my letter. Shak.

The sailor's choice, or pinfish.

church, and taxed for its support. [U.S.] The parish, or precinct, shall proceed to a new choice. Laws of Massachusetts.

In preference; by choice. To choose Plautus preferably to Terence. Dennis.

ed; the setting of one thing before another; precedence; higher estimation; predilection; choice; also, the power or opportunity of choosing; as, to give him his preference. Leave the critics on either side to contend about the preference due to this or that sort of poetry. Dryden. Knowledge of things alone gives a val…

are allowed to indicate on their ballots their preference (usually their first and second choices) between two or more candidates for an office, so that if no candidate receives a majority of first choices the one receiving the greatest number of first and second choices together in nominated or elected.…

Right of first choice.

The deep; the sea; the ocean. God in the fathomless profound Hath all this choice commanders drowned. Sandys.

nown or foretold; an indication; a sign or omen; hence, a foretelling; a prediction. That choice would inevitably be considered by the country as a prognostic of the highest import. Macaulay.

Rigid purity; the quality of being affectedly pure or nice, especially in the choice of language; over-solicitude as to purity. "His political purism." De Quincey. The English language, however, . . . had even already become too thoroughly and essentially a mixed tongue for his doctrine of purism to be admitted to the…

One who aims at excessive purity or nicety, esp. in the choice of language. He [Fox] . . . purified vocabulary with a scrupulosity unknown to any purist. Macaulay.

Sought out with care; choice. Hence: of rare quality, elegance, or attractiveness; peculiar and refined in kind.

The right of taking in preference to others; the choice of taking or refusing; option; as, to give one the refusal of a farm; to have the refusal of an employment.

orance, and errors . . . are severely reprehended. Dryden. I nor advise nor reprehend the choice. J. Philips.