What does the word "hooky" mean in the phrase "play hooky" (skipping class/truancy) and where did it come from?
Learn English – the origin of the phrase “playing hooky”
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Best Answer
Dictionary discussions of 'hookey'
John Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms (1848) has entries for "hookey" and for a term that I suspect may be very closely related, "on one's own hook". Here they are:
The second edition of Bartlett (1859) adds to the entry for hookey the words "chiefly in the State of New York." Although the 1848 edition of Bartlett has an entry for "by hook or by crook," neither it nor the 1859 edition has anything for "hooky-crooky," which makes that theory of origin less appealing. Bartlett also provides an entry for hook, but that entry says simply
to which the 1859 edition appends the words "formerly used in England." No doubt running away is a frequent adjunct to stealing, but it appears that hookey was already used in U.S. slang before Bartlett showed any awareness of U.S. use of "to hook" in the sense of "to steal."
As for the theory that truant schoolboys were influenced by the Dutch term hoekje spelen, it seems rather fanciful; the argument would be more compelling if the kids cutting school were naughty PhD candidates in linguistics. Admittedly, Bartlett's explicit tying of the word hookey to New York offers some support for the possibility that the expression is derived from Dutch (as hoople was), but I remain skeptical.
It seems far more likely to me that a schoolboy might boast to his schoolmates that he was "going out on his own account [or going on his own hook] for the day" and that the wording mutated into "playing hookey."
On the other hand, Kenneth Wilson, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993) has this reading:
And Dick Wilkinson, Concise Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors (2013) reports that the phrase "hook Jack" was used in the sense of "play truant" during the period 1840–1850:
Harold Wentworth, American Dialect Dictionary (1944) confirms the usage of "hook Jack" listed in Wilkinson:
Google Books and Library of Congress matches for 'hookey' and related terms
The earliest Google Books match for "on his own hook" is from a letter from Gerrit Smith to Edward Delavan (September 11, 1833), reprinted in "The Intemperate, and the Reformed" (1834):
Another instance occurs in Robert Bird, Nick of the Woods, or, The Jibbenainosay: A Tale of Kentucky, volume 2 (1837):
The earliest Google Books match for hookey in the relevant U.S. sense is from Joseph Field, La Déesse, an Elssler-atic Romance (1841):
An instance from Merry's Gems of Prose and Poetry (1860) spells the word hookie:
In this vignette (or reminiscence), at least, it appears that "playing hookie" entailed not skipping school but failing to return directly home (as expected) after school. But in other instances from the 1860s, bagging school is definitely part of the delinquency.
Another early instance of hookey in the relevant sense appears in a brief item in the New York Daily Tribune (April 30, 1845), reprinted from the Baltimore [Maryland] Saturday Visiter:
The earliest Google Books match for "hook Jack" appears in City of Boston. Reports of Truant Officers (July 1853):
And from Oliver Optic, Now Or Never: Or, The Adventures of Bobby Bright (1857):
Other early nineteenth-century meanings of 'hookey'
Hookey was by no means an unheard-of term in the United States when it began to be applied to truancy. One early instance of hookey that doesn't seem to be directly related to the "skip school" sense of the term appears in "Editor's Correspondence" (written by a correspondent from New York on January 12, 1846), in the [Washington, D.C.] Daily Union (January 13, 1846):
An early edition of Hoyle's Games: Containing the Rules for Playing Fashionable Games (1857) devotes a full page to explaining the rules for playing "Blind Hookey," a simple card game that has elements of blackjack in it. George Smeeton, Doings in London; Or, Day and Night Scenes of the Frauds, Frolics, Manners, and Depravities of the Metropolis (1828) mentions this game twice; and Professional Anecdotes: or Ana of Medical Literature, volume 2 (published in London in 1823), says that Blind Hookey "is a game venerable for its antiquity." The name Blind Hookey thus seems very likely to have originated in England and subsequently crossed over to the United States.
Another usage of hookey in early nineteenth century English appears in the phrase "Hookey Walker"—a piece of London slang attested as early as 1811 in Francis Grose, Lexicon Balatronicum (1811):
J.S. Farmer & W.E. Henley, Slang and Its Analogues, volume 3 (1893) has this entry for the term:
The "Bee" mentioned by Farmer & Henley is Jon Bee, Slang. A Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, of Bon-ton, and the Varieties of Life (1823), which offers a thorough account of the expression and accompanying pantomime. Though Hookey Walker was an English term, knowledge of it reached the United States. The [Holly Springs, Mississippi] Guard (January 12, 1842) devotes space to an excerpt from Charles Mackay, "Cant Phrases," from his Memoirs of Popular Delusions, including this discussion of Hookey Walker:
Could 'hookey' have originated from 'Hookies', a pejorative term for Amish people?
An answer by Old-School (above) asserts that "playing hookie" meant staying at home rather than going to school "like the Amish children." Could that appellation for the Amish be the source of hookey in the sense of truancy? Google Books searches for Hookies and Hookeys turn up a first occurrence in the relevant sense from Peter Schrag, Voices in the Classroom: Public Schools and Public Attitudes (1965) [combined snippets]:
Also, from Donald Erickson, Public Controls for Nonpublic Schools (1969) [combined snippets]:
And from Don Locke, Increasing Multicultural Understanding: A Comprehensive Model, second edition (1998):
Mitford Mathews, A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951) has no entry for Hookies or Hookeys, but it does have relevant citations for "Hook and Eye Baptists," "Hook and Eye Dutch," and "Hookers":
and:
Google Books finds instances of "Hook and Eye Baptist" as early as a newspaper called the Journal and Republican of February 15, 1894, quoted in Strangers and Pilgrims: History of Lewis County [New York] Mennonites (1987):
Instances of "Hook and Eye Dutch" going back to Federal Writers Project, The WPA Guide to Iowa: The Hawkeye State (1938):
Federal Writers Project, The WPA Guide to Oklahoma (1941), however, asserts that the "Hook and Eye Dutch" are indeed Amish:
The earliest mention of "Hooker Amish" I could find in Google Books searches is from Henry Smith, "Report to the Evangelical Alliance," in The American Presbyterian and Theological Review (October 1867):
Jonathon Green, Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (2005) offers this relevant entry:
Conclusions
The earliest instance of *hookey/hooky" that a Google Books search finds is from 1841, so any source for that slang term must have existed before that year. The phrase "on [one's] own hook" dates to at least 1833, which qualifies it as a possible source—but no published authority supports the notion that it may be the actual source. According to at least two authorities, the phrase "hook Jack" is recorded for the period 1840–1850," so it, too, qualifies. Yet another reference work suggests that hookey derives from hook in the sense of "escape." I haven't attempted to trace that usage of hook.
The suggestion that hookey derives from Hookies (a denigrating term for Amish people) is intriguing, but it suffers from the fact that the term Hookie/Hookey is not recorded in the sense of "Amish" until fairly late—the earliest Google Books match is from 1965. Earlier dictionaries list "Hook and Eye Baptist" (as early as 1894) "Hook and Eye Dutch" (as early as 1904), and "Hooker" (as early as 1867) as terms referring to Amish people.
But if anything, the presence of those terms in the published record makes the absence of Hookies/ Hookeys in the same sense more striking. And even the earliest instance of Hooker I could find is from 26 years after the first instance of hookey in the "truancy" sense. Ultimately, the argument that hookey comes from Hookies is unpersuasive, I think, because Hookies appears so late in the historical record and because no lexicographer who is or was aware of the hook-and-eye-related pejorative terms for Amish people has considered those terms to be related to truancy hookey.