truant
English
Etymology
From Middle English truant, truand, trewande, trowant (= Middle Dutch trouwant, trawant, truwant), from Old French truand, truant (“a vagabond, beggar, rogue", also "beggarly, roguish”), of Celtic origin, perhaps from Gaulish *trugan, or from Breton truan (“wretched”), from Proto-Celtic *térh₁-tro-m, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁-.[1]
Cognate with Scottish Gaelic truaghan, Irish trogha (“destitute”), trogán, Breton truc (“beggar”), Welsh tru.
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -ʊənt
- IPA(key): /ˈtɹʊənt/, /ˈtɹuː.ənt/
Audio (RP) (file)
Adjective
truant (not comparable)
- Absent without permission, especially from school.
- He didn't graduate because he was chronically truant and didn't have enough attendances to meet the requirement.
- Wandering from business or duty; straying; loitering; idle, and shirking duty.
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene ii]:
- A truant disposition, good my lord.
- 1772, John Trumbull, The Owl and the Sparrow, page 149:
- While truant Jove, in infant pride, / Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side.
- 1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 403869432, lines 705-710:
- But where thou seest a single Sheep remain
In shades aloof, or couch'd upon the Plain;
Or listlesly to crop the tender Grass;
Or late to lag behind, with truant pace;
Revenge the Crime; and take the Traytor's head,
E're in the faultless Flock the dire Contagion spread.
- 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, OCLC 2057953:
- Indeed, calamity is welcome to women if they think it will bring truant affection home again: and if you have reduced your mistress to a crust, depend upon it that she won’t repine, and only take a very little bit of it for herself, provided you will eat the remainder in her company.
- 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314:
- Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. […] She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
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Derived terms
- truant officer
Translations
Describing one who is truant, absent without permission
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Noun
truant (plural truants)
- One who is absent without permission, especially from school.
Derived terms
- play truant
Translations
One who is absent without permission
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Verb
truant (third-person singular simple present truants, present participle truanting, simple past and past participle truanted)
- (intransitive) To play truant.
- the number of schoolchildren known to have truanted
- (transitive) To idle away; to waste.
- c. 1635–1636 (date written), Iohn Ford [i.e., John Ford], The Fancies, Chast and Noble: […], London: […] E[lizabeth] P[urslowe] for Henry Seile, […], published 1638, OCLC 1203229687, Act III, page 45:
- I dare not be the Author / Of trevvanting the time then, neither vvill I.
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- To idle away time.
- c. 1594, William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene ii]:
- Tis double vvrong , to truant vvith your bed
- 1876, James Russell Lowell, “Milton”, in Among My Books: Second Series:
- By this means they lost their time and truanted on the fundamental grounds of saving knowledge.
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References
- Roberts, Edward A. (2014) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN
Anagrams
- traunt