play hooky
verbEtymology See hooky for its origin; the construction of the phrase is in the same vein as play truant.
1
US, Idiomatic To play truant; to avoid (informally: skip) school, work, or other duties (stay away from these without permission nor an excuse); to skive or to bunk off (UK);
- Plenty of people played hooky from work to go see the movie on opening day.
- Synonyms
- play truant
- Related terms
- truant, play truant, mitch, wag, bug out