Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to choose up

to choose up

1 7.0
To pick teams or sides for a game
  • phrasal verb
  • Archaic
translation icon : formar equipos
  • The children gathered in a circle to choose up sides for the game.
  • choose up sides
  • choose up teams

Examples

  • Sergeant Milam, choose up a squad, and be quick about it.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • I'd strongly resist being tagged with the "evangelical" label, so I sympathize with the desire to choose up teams.

    Blog text (13)

  • We chose up teams, and so far my team's won seven out of 10 games.

    Macon County Line (1974)

  • We were choosing up sides.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • "So you chose up sides, huh, kid?" From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of movement.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • All right, kiddies, choose up and hit the sack.

    Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

  • Our mother taught us to substitute the word "tiger" for the word "nigger" when the neighborhood gang chose up teams.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • We'll choose up sides.

    Fandango (1985)

  • Let's choose up teams for the soccer match after school.

  • Before we start, we need to choose up teams for the competition.

Synonyms

to choose up sides
vsto choose up
  • Archaic
1 5.2

Divide people into two teams by picking players one after another

is a general division into teams without focusing on alternate selection
to choose up teams
vsto choose up
  • Archaic
1 4.4

Divide a group into two teams by taking turns picking people

is general division into teams without naming a picking method

Antonyms

to unselect
4.9

To remove someone from a group of chosen people, for example a team

Surface Forms

choose up infinitive
choosing up present participle
chooses up third person singular
chose up past
chosen up past participle

Morphology

choose + up

‘Choose’ clearly signals selection, but the particle ‘up’ does not by itself mean ‘divide into teams’; the sense ‘choose up (teams/sides)’ is a conventionalized phrasal use where ‘up’ conveys completion or forming sides. Because the specific meaning ‘divide into teams’ requires knowledge of this phrasal/colloquial pattern rather than being fully derivable from the parts, it is best classified as semi-transparent.

Etymology

The phrasal verb choose up comes from children picking teams for a game. Kids would take turns to choose players up, pointing to someone to join a side, and that image made the phrase mean 'to divide into teams'.