Where did the term "play hooky" come from?

Answer 1

Don Willmott wrote:
Though "playing hooky" seems to have been a popular pastime during the era of the "Our Gang" comedies, kids today just "skip school." Where does "hooky" come from? Did truant officers of yore run around with actual hooks?
That's a good guess--but truant officers wouldn't be that cruel!

Play hooky, 'be absent from school without an excuse', is an Americanism first recorded around 1848. Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms gives this slightly later example: "He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging, along with Joe Harper, for playing hookey the day before." (Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer) And here's another example showing the extended use of the term: "I played hookey from the Appropriations Committee this morning." (Harry Truman, Dear Bess)

Play hooky is probably derived from the Dutch term hoekje (spelen) 'hide-and-seek'. The Dutch word hoek means 'corner'-- the boys in 17th-century New Amsterdam played this game around the corners of the street. Hide-and-seek was a different game back then--the players had to search for a hidden object. Although play hooky originally referred to the game of hide-and-seek, it also had other meanings in the 17th and 18th centuries. It wasn't until the 19th century that schoolchildren began using play hooky to mean 'skip school.'

It's also been suggested that play hooky comes from the verb hook, euphemistically meaning 'to steal', or from the phrase hook it, meaning 'to escape, run away, make off'. These derivations are unlikely-- the Random House Dictionary of American Slang points out that the term hook it was not used in the United States until after 1848.

Play hooky was originally slang, but now, of course, it's standard English. But you're right in noting that the term isn't used very much anymore.

Answer 2

Old phrase: To play "Hookie" from work (or school). Where did this come from? And why do you "play" it?

PLAY HOOKY - "There is no widely accepted explanation for the word 'hookey' or 'hooky.' An Americanism that arose in the late 19th century, when compulsory attendance laws became the rule in public schools, 'hooky' may be a compression of the older expression 'hook it,' 'to escape or make off,' formed by dropping the 't' in the phrase. Or it could be related to the old slang word 'hook,' meaning 'to steal,': kids stealing a day off from school. 'Hooky' has so often been associated with going fishing that it may even owe its life to 'getting off the hook' the way a fish can; anyway, school is often insufferable as a hook to schoolchildren and many kids squirming in their seats all day look like they are on a hook." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

Answer 3

Play hooky is probably derived from the Dutch term hoekje (spelen) 'hide-and-seek'. The Dutch word hoek means 'corner'-- the boys in 17th-century New Amsterdam played this game around the corners of the street. Hide-and-seek was a different game back then--the players had to search for a hidden object. Although play hooky originally referred to the game of hide-and-seek, it also had other meanings in the 17th and 18th centuries. It wasn't until the 19th century that schoolchildren began using play hooky to mean 'skip school.'

It's also been suggested that play hooky comes from the verb hook, euphemistically meaning 'to steal', or from the phrase hook it, meaning 'to escape, run away, make off'. These derivations are unlikely-- the Random House Dictionary of American Slang points out that the term hook it was not used in the United States until after 1848.

Answer 4

Long years ago kids would "skip" school to go fishing. (fish hook) . Hence the term to play hooky.

Answer 5

Well I just called my mother, and she informed me that it started way before her day, too.. it was around in the "30s", and so it had to have started before the "30s" because my Mother was born in 1936, so the expression was from the "1920s" and who or why they started it, if Mom doesn't know, your going to have to hope someone on here was born before the "30s" and or know's someone who was, who can tell them.....Good Luck, hun!! Smile!!