I don’t think that I’ve read Chaucer since high school, but I was still fascinated when I ran across an article on the many commonly used English phrases that he  coined (or popularized) a lot of phrases that we still regularly use today, and the folks at Medievalists.net assembled 35 of them! They include …

• Through Thick and Thin — Found in The Canterbury Tales: “And forth with wehee, thurgh thikke and thurgh thenne.”
• To Wet One’s Whistle — Found in The Canterbury Tales: “So was hir joly whistle wel ywet.”
• Piping Hot — Found in The Canterbury Tales: “And wafres, pipyng hot out of the gleede.”
• To Hang in the Balance — Found in the short poem Womanly Noblesse: “Considryng eke how I hange in balaunce.”

Go check out the rest; cool beans.