"[Play] hookey" (1842, 1846, 1853)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

A few early instances from the Brooklyn paper:

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_Brooklyn Daily Eagle_, 17 June 1842: p. 2:

<<"When I was a child," says the apostle, "I thought as a child, I spake as
a child," &c., "but when I became a man, I put away childish things." --
That is, if we rightly understand the language, he no longer drove the
hoop, shot marbles, flyed kites, (not even after the Wall street fashion,)
hunted birds' nests, played "hookey," and chased butterflies, ....>>

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_Brooklyn Daily Eagle_, 5 June 1846: p. 2:

<<A mother, perhaps, has a favorite young son, who 'begs off' from school,
or 'plays hookey.'>>

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_Brooklyn Daily Eagle_, 22 Dec. 1853: p. 3:

<<We talk of Adam and Eve as having been, before the fall, in a very happy
condition, but one thing they missed -- they were never children. Adam
never played marbles. He never played "hookey." He never drove a tandem of
boys with a string. He never skated on a pond, or played "ball," or rode
down hill on a hand sleigh.  And Eve, she never made a playhouse; she never
took tea with another little girl from the little tea-table set out with
the toy tea things; she never rolled hoop, or jumped a rope, or pieced a
baby quilt, or dressed a doll. They never played "blind man's buff," or
"pussy wants a corner," or "hurly-burly," or any of the games with which
childhood disports itself.>>

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In the 1846 article, it would seem that "play hookey" means "play truant"
as expected.

In the others, the meaning of "hookey" is not so clear (to me anyway): it
may have this same meaning ("truant"), or it may mean something else. It
appears among a list of boys' amusements as if "hookey" could have denoted
a game or similar activity (rather than a day off _in which_ such
amusements could be enjoyed).

The speculative etymology cited in HDAS has "hookey" < Dutch "hoekje" =
"hide-and-seek". Other possibilities would include "hookey" < "hockey",
etc., with various conjectures as to how/why the word came to be used for
truancy. Perhaps it was understood at the time that the truant boys
typically engaged in some particular activity? Or maybe the expression was
just reapplied or recycled? Or ....

-- Doug Wilson