truant
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L329661 on Wikidata ↗adjective
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L341358 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈtɹuːənt/ / /ˈtɹuənt/
adj
Etymology: The adjective and noun are derived from Middle English truant, truand, truaund (“(adjective) idle; tending to vagrancy (uncertain; may be a use of the noun); (noun) beggar; mendicant friar; vagrant, wanderer; worthless person, rogue, scoundrel; one who is absent without leave, truant; one who shirks duties”), from Old French truant, truand (“(adjective) beggarly; roguish; (noun) a beggar, vagabond; a rogue”) (modern French truand), probably of Celtic origin, possibly from Gaulish *trugan, or from Breton truan (“wretched”), from Proto-Celtic *taratrom, from Proto-Indo-European *térh₁-tro-m, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to drill, pierce; to rub; to turn”). Cognates * Breton truc (“beggar”) * Irish trogán, trogha (“destitute”) * Middle Dutch trawant, trouwant, truwant * Occitan truan * Portuguese truão * Scottish Gaelic trudanach (“vagabond”), truaghan (“wretched”) * Spanish truhan * Welsh tru, truan (“wretched”)
- Shirking or wandering from business or duty; straying; hence, idle; loitering.
“Ham[let]. And vvhat in faith make you from VVittenberg? / Hora[tio]. A truant diſpoſition good my Lord.”
“[W]ee are not to imitate them; nor to diſtruſt God in the removal of that Truant help to our Devotion, vvhich by him never vvas appointed.”
- Of a student: absent from school without permission.
“He didn’t graduate because he was chronically truant and didn’t have enough attendances to meet the requirement.”
“[…] I fell desperately in love with a little daughter of the squire's about twelve years of age. This freak of fancy made me more truant from my studies than ever.”
- Having no real substance; unimportant, vain, worthless.
noun
Etymology: The adjective and noun are derived from Middle English truant, truand, truaund (“(adjective) idle; tending to vagrancy (uncertain; may be a use of the noun); (noun) beggar; mendicant friar; vagrant, wanderer; worthless person, rogue, scoundrel; one who is absent without leave, truant; one who shirks duties”), from Old French truant, truand (“(adjective) beggarly; roguish; (noun) a beggar, vagabond; a rogue”) (modern French truand), probably of Celtic origin, possibly from Gaulish *trugan, or from Breton truan (“wretched”), from Proto-Celtic *taratrom, from Proto-Indo-European *térh₁-tro-m, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to drill, pierce; to rub; to turn”). Cognates * Breton truc (“beggar”) * Irish trogán, trogha (“destitute”) * Middle Dutch trawant, trouwant, truwant * Occitan truan * Portuguese truão * Scottish Gaelic trudanach (“vagabond”), truaghan (“wretched”) * Spanish truhan * Welsh tru, truan (“wretched”)
- An idle or lazy person; an idler.
“For my part I may ſpeake it to my ſhame, / I haue a truant beene to Chiualrie, […]”
“You loiter, vvhile the Spoils are born avvay: / Our Ships are laden vvith the Trojan Store, / And you like Truants come too late aſhore.”
- A student who is absent from school without permission; hence (figurative), a person who shirks or wanders from business or duty.
“[S]ince I pluckt Geeſe, plaide Trevvant, and vvhipt Top, I knevv not vvhat 'tvvas to be beaten, till lately.”
“[…] I knovve you are no truant, / But vvhat is your affaire in Elſonoure?”
- Synonym of sturdy beggar (“a person who was fit and able to work, but lived as a beggar or vagrant instead”); hence, a worthless person; a rogue, a scoundrel.
“Hang him truant, theres no true drop of bloud in him to be truly toucht vvith loue, if he be ſadde, he vvantes money.”
verb
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English truaunten (“to obtain alms fraudulently; to behave like a rogue or scoundrel; to neglect a duty; to be idle or lazy”), and then partly: * from Old French truander (modern French truander (“to cheat, to con”)), from truand (noun) (see etymology 1) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs); and * from Middle English truaunt (noun) (see etymology 1) + -en (suffix forming infinitives of verbs).
- Also used with the impersonal pronoun it (dated): to shirk or wander from business or duty; (specifically) of a student: to be absent from school without permission; to play truant.
“The number of schoolchildren known to have truanted from this school has been unusually high.”
“VVhat made the Gods ſo often to trevvant from Heauen & mych [much] héere on earth, but beautie?”
- To idle away or waste (time).
“I dare not be the Author / Of trevvanting the time then, neither vvill I.”