Legal Definitions - choate

Definition: Choate (koh-it or -ayt) is an adjective that means complete in and of itself or having ripened or become perfected. It is the opposite of inchoate.

Examples:

• A fully grown tree is a choate organism.
• After years of practice, the musician's skills became choate.
• The novel was inchoate when the author first started writing it, but after several revisions, it became a choate work of literature.

The first example illustrates the definition of choate by showing that a fully grown tree is complete in and of itself. The second example shows that the musician's skills have ripened or become perfected over time. The third example demonstrates how a work of literature can start as inchoate, or incomplete, but with revisions, it can become a choate work.