[W]ee are not to imitate them; nor to diſtruſt God in the removal of thatTruant help to our Devotion, vvhich by him never vvas appointed.
1697,Virgil, “The Third Book of theGeorgics”, inJohn Dryden, transl.,The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis.[…], London:[…]Jacob Tonson,[…],→OCLC,page117, lines705–710:
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, vvithtruant pace; / Revenge the Crime; and take the Traytor's head, / E're in the faultleſs Flock the dire Contagion ſpread.
1772,John Trumbull, “The Owl and the Sparrow. A Fable.”, inThe Poetical Works of John Trumbull,[…], volume II, Hartford, Conn.:[…]Samuel G[riswold] Goodrich, by Lincoln & Stone, published1820,→OCLC,page149:
In elder days, inSaturn's prime, / Ere baldness seized the head of Time, / WhiletruantJove, 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 atruant boy I paſs'd my bounds / T'enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames.
Dovvn the ſteep ſlopes He led vvith modeſt ſkill / The vvilling pathvvay, and thetruant rill,[…]
1791–1792 (published1793), William Wordsworth, “Descriptive Sketches, Taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps”, inHenry [Hope] Reed, editor,The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Philadelphia, Pa.: Hayes & Zell,[…], published1860,→OCLC,page30, column 1:
Me, lured by hope its sorrows to remove, / A heart that could not much itself approve / O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led, / Her road elms rustling high above my head, / Or through hertruant pathways' native charms, / By secret villages and lonely farms,[…]
Indeed, calamity is welcome to women if they think it will bringtruant affection home again: and if you have reduced your mistress to a crust, depend upon it that she won't repine, and only take a very little bit of it for herself, provided you will eat the remainder in her company.
Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.[…] She put back atruant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
[…] I fell desperately in love with a little daughter of the squire's about twelve years of age. This freak of fancy made me moretruant from my studies than ever.
For my part I may ſpeake it to my ſhame, / I haue atruant beene to Chiualrie,[…]
1697,Virgil, “The Second Book of theÆneis”, inJohn Dryden, transl.,The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis.[…], London:[…]Jacob Tonson,[…],→OCLC,page249, lines505–507:
You loiter, vvhile the Spoils are born avvay: / Our Ships are laden vvith theTrojan Store, / And you likeTruants come too late aſhore.
Inherited fromMiddle Englishtruaunten(“to obtain alms fraudulently; to behave like a rogue or scoundrel; to neglect a duty; to be idle or lazy”),[4] and then partly:
VVhat ſimple thiefe brags of his ovvne attaine? / 'Tis double vvrong, totruant vvith your bed, / And let her read it in thy lookes at boord:[…]
What mindless thief brags of his own crime? / 'Tis doubly wrong towander from your bed [i.e., be unfaithful to one’s wife], / And let her read it in your looks at the table:[…]
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 nottruant it novv in the afternoon, but vvith convenient ſpeed returns toAbraham, vvho onely vvas vvorthy of ſuch a Servant, vvho onely vvas vvorthy of ſuch a Maſter.
1690, J[ohn] Garretson, “Exercises Fitted to Lilly’s Concords, and Rules, together with Observations upon Them”, inEnglish Exercises for School-boys to Translate into Latin.[…], 3rd edition, London:[…] Tho[mas] Cockerill,[…],→OCLC,page30:
ThouTruantest much, and art very idle, which are moſt pernicious things.
^Roberts, Edward A. (2014)A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation,→ISBN
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, December 2023;“truant,n. andadj.”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022.
truancy on Wikipedia.Wikipedia