play truant
/ˌpleɪ ˈtruːənt/NEUTRAL · C1
Meaning
to stay away from school without permission
Examples
- 1Tom played truant for a whole week and told his parents he had been at school.
- 2Schools must contact parents on the first day a child plays truant.
- 3Instead of going to her maths lessons, Maria was playing truant in the park with her friends.
- 4If you play truant again, the head will call your parents in for a meeting.
- 5Leo's attendance record shows that he played truant on eleven Fridays last term.
Grammar
play changes: plays, playing, played. truant takes no article and stays singular.
More idioms about education
All 20 idioms and the topic quiz →a mine of informationa person who knows a lot of useful factsthe school of hard knockslearning from difficult experiences in life rather than from lessonshit the booksto start studying seriously, especially before examsget the hang ofto learn how to do something that is not simple at firstit's not rocket scienceit is easy to understand or dotrial and errortrying different methods and learning from what goes wrong
English Idioms400 idioms in 20 topics — with reviews that keep them from fading
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