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Truant vs Vagabond - What's the difference?

truant | vagabond |

As adjectives the difference between truant and vagabond

is that truant is absent without permission, especially from school while vagabond is floating about without any certain direction; driven to and fro.

As nouns the difference between truant and vagabond

is that truant is one who is absent without permission, especially from school while vagabond is a person on a trip of indeterminate destination and/or length of time.

As verbs the difference between truant and vagabond

is that truant is to play truant while vagabond is to roam, as a vagabond.

truant

English

Adjective

(-)
  • Absent without permission, especially from school.
  • :
  • Wandering from business or duty; straying; loitering; idle, and shirking duty.
  • :
  • *1603+ , (William Shakespeare), (Hamlet) , Act 1, Scene 2
  • *:A truant disposition, good my lord.
  • *1772 , , p.149
  • *:While truant Jove, in infant pride, / Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side.
  • *
  • *:Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.

    • Derived terms

    * truant officer

    Noun

    (truants)
  • One who is absent without permission, especially from school.

    • Derived terms

    * play truant

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To play truant.
    • the number of schoolchildren known to have truanted
  • To idle away; to waste.
  • * Ford
    • I dare not be the author / Of truanting the time.
  • To idle away time.
    • (Shakespeare)
  • * Lowell
    • By this means they lost their time and truanted on the fundamental grounds of saving knowledge.

    vagabond

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person on a trip of indeterminate destination and/or length of time.
  • One who wanders from place to place, having no fixed dwelling, or not abiding in it, and usually without the means of honest livelihood; a vagrant; a hobo.
  • * Bible, Genesis iv. 12
    • A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Hypernyms

    * person

    Related terms

    * extravagant

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To roam, as a vagabond

    • Adjective

    (-)
  • Floating about without any certain direction; driven to and fro.
  • * Milton
    • To heaven their prayers / Flew up, nor missed the way, by envious winds / Blown vagabond or frustrate.
  • * 1959 , Jack London, The Star Rover
    • Truly, the worships of the Mystery wandered as did men, and between filchings and borrowings the gods had as vagabond a time of it as did we.
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