A dated British slang phrase meaning to play truant — to skip school without permission and spend the day doing something more entertaining instead. 'Hopping the wag' was the kind of thing that got you a caning in the Victorian and Edwardian eras if you were caught. 'Wag' here is short for 'wagging it' (playing hooky), a sense still alive in British school slang, even if this fuller phrase has fallen out of regular use. The image is of jumping over or off the obligation.
Half the boys in the class were known to hop the wag on the afternoon of the local fair so they could get there before the rides closed.
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(idiomatic, UK, slang, dated) To play truant .
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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