truant

Meanings

Adjective

• Absent without permission, especially from school.
• Wandering from business or duty; straying; loitering; idle, and shirking duty.

Noun

• One who is absent without permission, especially from school.

Verb

• To play truant.
• To idle away; to waste.
• To idle away time.

Origin

• From Middle English truant, truand, trewande, trowant (= Middle Dutch trouwant, trawant, truwant), from Old French truand, truant, of Celtic origin, perhaps from Gaulish *trugan, or from Breton truan ("wretched"), from Proto-Celtic *térh₁-tro-m, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁-.
• Cognate with Scottish Gaelic truaghan, Irish trogha ("destitute"), trogán, Breton truc ("beggar"), Welsh tru.