truant
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈtɹuːənt/
ipa: /ˈtɹuənt/
rhymes: -uːənt
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”)
Senses: examples: text: Ham[let]. And vvhat in faith make you from VVittenberg? / Hora[tio]. A truant diſpoſition good my Lord.
ref: c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], signature C, verso:
text: [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.
ref: 1649, J[ohn] Milton, “Upon the Ordinance against the Common-prayer Book”, in ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC, page 152:
text: But vvhere 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, vvith truant pace; / Revenge the Crime; and take the Traytor's head, / E're in the faultleſs Flock the dire Contagion ſpread.
ref: 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, page 117, lines 705–710:
text: In elder days, in Saturn's prime, / Ere baldness seized the head of Time, / While truant Jove, in infant pride, / Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side, / Each thing on earth had power to chatter, / And spoke the mother tongue of nature.
ref: 1772, John Trumbull, “The Owl and the Sparrow. A Fable.”, in The Poetical Works of John Trumbull, […], volume II, Hartford, Conn.: […] Samuel G[riswold] Goodrich, by Lincoln & Stone, published 1820, →OCLC, page 149:
text: [I] have loved the rural vvalk / O'er hills, through valleys, and by rivers brink, / E'er ſince a truant boy I paſs'd my bounds / T'enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames.
ref: 1785, William Cowper, “Book I. The Sofa.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, page 7:
text: Dovvn the ſteep ſlopes He led vvith modeſt ſkill / The vvilling pathvvay, and the truant rill, […]
ref: 1791, [Erasmus Darwin], “Canto I”, in The Botanic Garden; a Poem, in Two Parts. […], London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, part I (The Economy of Vegetation), page 4, lines 53–54:
text: Me, lured by hope its sorrows to remove, / A heart that could not much itself approve / O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led, / Her road elms rustling high above my head, / Or through her truant pathways' native charms, / By secret villages and lonely farms, […]
ref: 1791–1792 (published 1793), William Wordsworth, “Descriptive Sketches, Taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps”, in Henry [Hope] Reed, editor, The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Philadelphia, Pa.: Hayes & Zell, […], published 1860, →OCLC, page 30, column 1:
text: 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.
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Prodigal’s Return”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849, →OCLC, page 205:
text: 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.
ref: 1910, Emerson Hough, “A Lady in Company”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 6:
glosses: Shirking or wandering from business or duty; straying; hence, idle; loitering.
examples: text: He didn’t graduate because he was chronically truant and didn’t have enough attendances to meet the requirement.
text: […] 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.
ref: 1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “Buckthorne, or The Young Man of Great Expectations”, in Tales of a Traveller, part 1 (Strange Stories. […]), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea, […], →OCLC, pages 73–74:
glosses: Of a student: absent from school without permission.
glosses: Having no real substance; unimportant, vain, worthless.
Derived terms: word: trivant
word: truantness