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truant

adjective · noun · verb

Simple meaning

Of a student: absent from school without permission.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

troouhnt

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtɹuənt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. specifically

    Of a student: absent from school without permission.

  2. Shirking or wandering from business or duty; straying; hence, idle; loitering.

noun

  1. specifically

    One who is absent from school without permission

  2. An idle or lazy person; an idler.

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.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

More ways to use truant

  • “He didn't graduate because he was chronically truant and didn't have enough attendances to meet the requirement.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Student / absent

truant schoolplays truanttruant schoolboy

Other combinations

truant officertruant boytruant childtruant dispositionhabitually truant

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

adjective

Sense: of a student

awolTechnical

noun

Sense: one who is absent from school without permission

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.