Question
Choose the meaning of the bold word in the following question.
Then he would shout and jabber as if crazy, / And wouldn’t speak a word except in Latin / When he was drunk, such tags as he was pat in; / He only had a few, say two or three, / That he had mugged up out of some decree; / No wonder, for he heard them every day. (The Canterbury Tales, “The Prologue")
(1 point)
Responses
foreign language
foreign language
formal order
formal order
old book
old book
timeless memory
timeless memory
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foreign language
The meaning of the bold word "decree" in the passage is a formal order.
To answer this question, we need to understand what the bold word "decree" means in the given context. One way to determine the meaning is by analyzing the surrounding sentence and the overall theme of the passage.
In this excerpt from "The Prologue" of The Canterbury Tales, the narrator describes a character who only speaks words in Latin when he is drunk. The phrase "That he had mugged up out of some decree" implies that the character has memorized a few Latin words or phrases from a decree.
Given this information, the most appropriate meaning for the word "decree" in this context is "formal order." A decree refers to an official statement or order issued by someone in authority. In this case, the character has memorized Latin phrases from such decrees.
Therefore, the correct option is "formal order."