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Certainly Chaucer had his favorite words and phrases, some of the most noteworthy we'll look at here.
Two words readily come to mind: noble and worthy.
Noble we both take to mean admirable, but Chaucer frequently uses it ironically, perhaps because it's a cognate of nobility which meant to Chaucer the ruling class, who were probably not always noble.
By worthy, we usually mean deserving, but Chaucer usually means competent, skilled, or valued, as in
the Knight's portrait, Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre
or the Marchant'sFor sothe he was a worthy man with alle
and the Wyf of Bath'sShe was a worthy womman al hir lyve
or the Marchant's
and the Wyf of Bath's
He uses it ironically in the last line describing the frere:
This worthy lymytour was cleped huberd (a lymytour is a monk with a permit for begging in a certain area).
clepe, cleped, clept called, named. MacBeth uses the word when recruiting the two conspirators.
For the nones (a personal favorite),literally means for the nines. It seems to still be around in the expression: She was dressed to the nines. It apparently derives from the fact that Roman holidays frequently occur around the ninth day of a month. From the Millere's portrait,
The millere was a stout carl for the nones
Here Chaucer is probably saying that the Millere
was rather rude in manners compared to the rest,
carl being similar to churl, meaning rude.There is both meanings of occasion and those attending an occasion; much like our word party.
yive, yaf, yiven give, gave, given.
swynk, swynkere work, worker
ay, al, aller all
wonynge dwelling
lewed unlearned
wight man, used by Shakespeare in a Sonnet CVI
Woot: And wel I woot,— and God it woot, And well I know, and God knows well— (a popular phrases)
the distance from London to Canterbury is 54.36 miles according to WolframeAlpha.