A student who is absent from school without permission, or someone who shirks their duty.
From Old French 'truant,' origin unclear but possibly from Celtic roots meaning 'beggar' or 'vagrant.' It came to specifically mean school-absent by the 1300s in English.
The word 'truant' captures childhood rebellion perfectly—every culture worries about kids skipping school, and the fact that this word exists in multiple European languages shows it's an age-old problem that different societies all named.
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