Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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adj
Shirking or wandering from business or duty; straying; hence, idle; loitering.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: not-comparable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Of a student: absent from school without permission.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: not-comparable, specifically
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Having no real substance; unimportant, vain, worthless.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: not-comparable, obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
An idle or lazy person; an idler.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: bum, couch potato, dawdler, deadbeat, dogfucker, do-naught, do-nothing, dosser, idler, idleton, faineant, flaneur, footler, get-nothing, good-for-nothing, goldbricker, goof-off, lallygag, lollygagger, laggard, layabout, lazy ass, lazybones, lazy louse, lidderon, lie-abed, loafer, loiter-sack, lounge lizard, lounger, morepork, ne'er-do-well, poop, ragabash, shirker, skiver, slacker, slob, slow belly, slug, slugabed, slug-a-bed, slugabug, sluggabed, sluggard, sofa spud, tarrier, truant, wasteman, waster, wastrel
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A student who is absent from school without permission; hence (figurative), a person who shirks or wanders from business or duty.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: specifically
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
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.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: bum, stiff, casual, clochard, derelict, dero, down-and-out, down-and-outer, drifter, epithite, floater, gadling, hobo, Jack out of doors, knight of the road, landleaper, landloper, landlouper, nomad, paker, palliard, pike, piker, ranger, rogue, rolling stone, rough sleeper, scatterling, skelder, skell, stroller, stumblebum, swagman, swaggie, toerag, tramp, truant, vagabond, vagrant, wanderer, waif, yagger, absolute zero, assbucket, asswipe, badling, blatherskite, bugger, carrion, cipher, cockstain, crumb, custron, dandiprat, doink, dirtbag, douchebag, drop kick, fellow, fritlag, fuckbucket, geek, good-for-naught, good-for-nothing, gooey, hoon, lidderon, losel, loser, louse, maggot, ne'er-do-well, nobody, no-good, no-mark, nonentity, nonce, nought, nowmun, pelf, pig dog, pile of shit, pissant, punk, puny, quat, ramp, rinky-dink, roly-poly, scullion, shicer, shitheap, slubberdegullion, sparrow-fart, streak of piss, twerp, wankstain, waste of space, underperson, unworthy, zero, sturdy beggar
Antonyms: none provided
verb
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.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: intransitive
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To idle away or waste (time).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
adjective satellite
absent without permission
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Synonyms: awol
Antonyms: none provided
noun
someone who shirks duty
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: no-show, nonattender
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: wrongdoer, offender
noun
one who is absent from school without permission
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: hooky player
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: absentee
History
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 *taratrom, from Proto-Indo-European *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).
Across languages
53 source translations are retained for this English entry.
