truant

adj

1. (not-comparable)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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “[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.”

2. (not-comparable, specifically)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.”

3. (not-comparable, obsolete)Having no real substance; unimportant, vain, worthless.

noun

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, […]”

   “You loiter, vvhile the Spoils are born avvay: / Our Ships are laden vvith the Trojan Store, / And you like Truants come too late aſhore.”

2. (specifically)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?”

   “The village maſter taught his little ſchool; / A man ſevere he vvas, and ſtern to vievv, / I knevv him vvell, and every truant knevv; […]”

3. (obsolete)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

1. (intransitive)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?”

   “VVhat ſimple thiefe brags of his ovvne attaine? / 'Tis double vvrong, to truant vvith your bed, / And let her read it in thy lookes at boord: […]”

   “By this means they loſt their time, and truanted in the fundamentall grounds of ſaving knovvledge, […]”

   “If in a dark buſineſſe vve perceive God to guide us by the lantern of his providence, it is good to follovv the light cloſe, leſt vve loſe it by our lagging behind. He [Eliezer] vvill not truant it novv in the afternoon, but vvith convenient ſpeed returns to Abraham, vvho onely vvas vvorthy of ſuch a Servant, vvho onely vvas vvorthy of ſuch a Maſter.”

2. (obsolete, transitive)To idle away or waste (time).

   “I dare not be the Author / Of trevvanting the time then, neither vvill I.”