play the wag
Play the wag is a dated British phrase meaning to play truant — to deliberately skip school without permission.
Definitions
Play the wag is a dated British phrase meaning to play truant — to deliberately skip school without permission. It belongs to the same semantic family as 'wag off,' 'skive,' 'bunk off,' and 'play hooky.' Largely obsolete but survives in dialect usage and historical accounts of British childhood. The register is informal and slightly roguish; it carries the suggestion of a child sneaking off for a day of freedom rather than a more serious dereliction.
He and his mate decided to play the wag and spend the afternoon fishing at the canal instead.
Comments
(idiomatic, UK, slang, dated) To play truant .
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🇬🇧About British & Irish slang slang
UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
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Semantically related
- wag83%
(UK, Australia, New Zealand, slang) To play truant from school.
- hop the wag82%
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.
- hop the wag77%
(idiomatic, UK, slang, dated) To play truant .
- play hooky72%
(idiomatic, US) 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).