Geoffrey Chaucer, a 14th-century English poet and author, best remembered for The Canterbury Tales; (by extension) his works.
Used in a Sentence
chaucer
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for chaucer.
Editorial note
To put this into perspective, Chaucer was two generations after Dante, and his writings are _barely_ comprehensible by layreaders.
Examples18
Definitions2
Parts of speech1
Quick take
Geoffrey Chaucer, a 14th-century English poet and author, best remembered for The Canterbury Tales; (by extension) his works.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of chaucer gathered in one view.
A rare medieval English surname from Old French.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for chaucer.
noun
Geoffrey Chaucer, a 14th-century English poet and author, best remembered for The Canterbury Tales; (by extension) his works.
noun
A rare medieval English surname from Old French.
Example sentences
To put this into perspective, Chaucer was two generations after Dante, and his writings are _barely_ comprehensible by layreaders.
We're into psychology and navigating a linguistic sea full of terminology that owes more to Chaucer than Roger Bacon.
Only about 300 years before Chaucer and you get Beowulf which is as incomprehensible to the modern native English reader/listener as Danish is.
Unalone's enjoyment of Finnegans Wake notwithstanding, deciphering the footnotes and expository ultimately doesn't have the upside that learning the English of Shakespeare and Chaucer do.
Relying on Chaucer as authority, then, is a real stretch.
But the following sounds just fine: Is Chaucer drunk?
I like chaucer, spencer, milton, shakespeare, plus just reading through all those in the original is so cool after a couple pages you slip into another world and time, nice escapism.
[1] Chaucer did the same with Canterbury Tales.
Mostly 'literature', say, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Dickens to the present is 'storytelling'; nearly all of movies and most of TV is storytelling; and you have no trouble understanding and liking a lot of movies and TV shows, right?
So too are there medieval dictionaries capturing the English of Chaucer and Wycliffe, as well as dictionaries of Old English, which bring out the Germanic origins of many of the words that predated a good number of those we use today.
However, the Wikipedia article on the word in question says that it's not attested in English before 1230 (though it has cognates in Old Norse -- which contributed a lot of vocabulary to English, via the Danelaw settlers -- and in other early Germanic languages), and that as late as Chaucer it was not considered obscene (though by Shakespeare's time it was).
Quote examples
Machiavelli, Chaucer, and their peers around the time of Gutenberg are all "too late" in the 14th century.
The singular "they" is as old as Chaucer and used by Shakespeare, Conrad, Austen, and EB White.
Setting aside Chaucer, only scattered evidence exists of "they" being used to refer to a singular antecedent.
Yes, Chaucer did use "they" in this manner.
Proper noun examples
Just as the name of the English language dates back to Chaucer's time and before.
Chaucer has it written as 'queynte', so the words may have actually sounded more different.
Chaucer, on the other hand, needed his patrons, while Lord Byron was independently wealthy.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use chaucer in a sentence?
To put this into perspective, Chaucer was two generations after Dante, and his writings are _barely_ comprehensible by layreaders.
What does chaucer mean?
Geoffrey Chaucer, a 14th-century English poet and author, best remembered for The Canterbury Tales; (by extension) his works.
What part of speech is chaucer?
chaucer is commonly used as noun.