play hooky
to stay away from school without permission
TRANSLATION
play hooky = die Schule schwänzen --- GOOGLE INDEX (play) hooky: approximately 600,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
"I used to go to movies for 11 cents," Jones said at his mansion nestled in the Bel-Air hills. "I used to PLAY HOOKY in Seattle every day."
(Los Angeles Times)
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Plenty of grown men and women in New York decided to PLAY HOOKY from work on Monday. Monday marked the New York Yankee’s home opener.
(www.investing.com)
(Los Angeles Times)
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Plenty of grown men and women in New York decided to PLAY HOOKY from work on Monday. Monday marked the New York Yankee’s home opener.
(www.investing.com)
Did you
know?
play hooky
noun phrase
- to stay away from school without permission
(Cambridge Dictionary)
---
The expression "play hooky" originally referred to staying away from school. It meanwhile is applied to any situation in which someone deliberately stays away from an event or a responsibility, be it work, school or an outing with friends as an example.
The origin of the word hooky has never been satisfactorily explained, but like many terms and phrases there are plenty of theories:
- from the Dutch hoekje, a name for the game of hide and seek (first recorded in late-1840s).
- some suggest that it stems from the phrasal verb "to hook it" meaning to run away or clear out.
- may have developed from the colloquial phrase "hooky-crooky" common in the early-19th century, which meant dishonest or underhanded.
Hooky first appeared in print in 1848, although the term had probably been in common use among children long before then. The phrase "play hooky" seems to have been an American invention and has a number of variations. In Boston, children who skip school were "hooking jack".
The "official" term for playing hooky is "to be (or play) truant". Truant stems from the Old French truant, meaning a "beggar or a rogue."
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Some students like to play hooky on Friday so they can have a long, 3-day weekend."
noun phrase
- to stay away from school without permission
(Cambridge Dictionary)
---
The expression "play hooky" originally referred to staying away from school. It meanwhile is applied to any situation in which someone deliberately stays away from an event or a responsibility, be it work, school or an outing with friends as an example.
The origin of the word hooky has never been satisfactorily explained, but like many terms and phrases there are plenty of theories:
- from the Dutch hoekje, a name for the game of hide and seek (first recorded in late-1840s).
- some suggest that it stems from the phrasal verb "to hook it" meaning to run away or clear out.
- may have developed from the colloquial phrase "hooky-crooky" common in the early-19th century, which meant dishonest or underhanded.
Hooky first appeared in print in 1848, although the term had probably been in common use among children long before then. The phrase "play hooky" seems to have been an American invention and has a number of variations. In Boston, children who skip school were "hooking jack".
The "official" term for playing hooky is "to be (or play) truant". Truant stems from the Old French truant, meaning a "beggar or a rogue."
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Some students like to play hooky on Friday so they can have a long, 3-day weekend."
