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• Canterbury Tales, The
  Canterbury Tales, The

  noun

  an uncompleted sequence of tales by Chaucer, written for the most part after 1387.
• The Canterbury Tales
  The Canterbury Tales

  A work written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late fourteenth century about a group of pilgrims, of many different occupations and personalities, who meet at an inn near London as they are setting out for Canterbury, England. Their host proposes a storytelling contest to make the journey more interesting.

Canterbury Tales, The

American  

noun

1. an uncompleted sequence of tales by Chaucer, written for the most part after 1387.

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The Canterbury Tales Cultural  

1. A work written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late fourteenth century about a group of pilgrims, of many different occupations and personalities, who meet at an inn near London as they are setting out for Canterbury, England. Their host proposes a storytelling contest to make the journey more interesting.

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The tales, which are almost all in rhyme, have many different styles, reflecting the great diversity of the pilgrims; some are notoriously bawdy. The language of The Canterbury Tales is Middle English.

Some of the more famous stories are “The Knight's Tale,” “The Miller's Tale,” and “The Wife of Bath's Tale.”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

The Canterbury Tales

Each pilgrim of "The Canterbury Tales" represents a different class or social position — the knight, the priest, the merchant, and so on.

From Salon ● Jan. 9, 2021

Other station highlights include an adaptation of The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, broadcast throughout the day on New Year's Day, and The Canterbury Tales performed by the characters of The Archers.

From BBC ● Nov. 21, 2018

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the Manciple’s Tale to preach the dangers of “jangling,” a term that encompassed most pointless chatter:

From Slate ● Feb. 25, 2016

Medieval works lend themselves to the picaresque, or multiple narration – think of The Decameròn or The Canterbury Tales.

From The Guardian ● May 28, 2013

I pulled The Canterbury Tales from my locker and dropped it in my backpack.

From "The Boy in the Black Suit" by Jason Reynolds