truant

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-. Cognate with Scottish Gaelic truaghan, Irish trogha (“destitute”), trogán, Breton truc (“beggar”), Welsh tru.

adj

1. 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.
2. Wandering from business or duty; straying; loitering; idle, and shirking duty.
   While truant Jove, in infant pride, / Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side. 1772, John Trumbull, The Owl and the Sparrow, page 149

noun

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

verb

1. (intransitive) To play truant.
   the number of schoolchildren known to have truanted
2. (transitive) To idle away; to waste.
3. To idle away time.
   By this means they lost their time and truanted on the fundamental grounds of saving knowledge.