English
truant
Truant comes from Old French truant.
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400truant
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500truant
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1597truant
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400truant
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500truant
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1597truant
Earliest quotation: c. 1597, William Shakespeare, The History of Henrie the Fourth; […]: “For my part I may ſpeake it to my…”
The story
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’).
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- ‘to drill, pierce’
turn, throw, thread, tournament, threshold, tragic, trout, tyrone, detrimental, detour, thrash, tourney, attrition, detriment, termite, triage, tribulation, tourniquet, trite, detritus, thresher, tyro, thresh, derma, 41 more
Another origin of truant
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500truaunten‘to obtain alms fraudulently’
- Englishtodaytruant
Today it means
adj Shirking or wandering from business or duty; straying; hence, idle; loitering.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Old French truant / truant