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Truant
Definitions
- 1 Shirking or wandering from business or duty; straying; hence, idle; loitering. not-comparable
"Ham[let]. And vvhat in faith make you from VVittenberg? / Hora[tio]. A truant diſpoſition good my Lord."
- 2 Of a student: absent from school without permission. not-comparable, specifically
"He didn’t graduate because he was chronically truant and didn’t have enough attendances to meet the requirement."
- 3 Having no real substance; unimportant, vain, worthless. not-comparable, obsolete
- 1 absent without permission wordnet
- 1 An idle or lazy person; an idler.
"For my part I may ſpeake it to my ſhame, / I haue a truant beene to Chiualrie, […]"
- 2 someone who shirks duty wordnet
- 3 A student who is absent from school without permission; hence (figurative), a person who shirks or wanders from business or duty. specifically
"[S]ince I pluckt Geeſe, plaide Trevvant, and vvhipt Top, I knevv not vvhat 'tvvas to be beaten, till lately."
- 4 one who is absent from school without permission wordnet
- 5 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. obsolete
"Hang him truant, theres no true drop of bloud in him to be truly toucht vvith loue, if he be ſadde, he vvantes money."
- 1 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. intransitive
"The number of schoolchildren known to have truanted from this school has been unusually high."
- 2 To idle away or waste (time). obsolete, transitive
"I dare not be the Author / Of trevvanting the time then, neither vvill I."
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 *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”)
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 *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”)
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).
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