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wag
to miss school; be a truant: He wagged school yesterday.
Editor's comments: Are there other terms for this activity throughout Australia?
Contributor's comments: The term "wag" is widely used in SA, eg he wagged school 3 times last month. I sustect it is widely used over much of Australia.
Contributor's comments: Common in Hobart school environment in the 50's - 70's.
Contributor's comments: Ditto. It's certainly used in Melb. What other word is used elsewhere in Oz? In the USA they `ditch' school, or the `play hooky', though that's almost archaic, but in Oz I've never heard the activity called anything but `wagging'.
Contributor's comments: I went to school in Ballina, far north coast of NSW. My friends and I wagged regularly...
Contributor's comments: A little extra information on the distribution of a term. You show the term 'wag', meaning to play truant from school as being common in a small part of coastal NSW only. I grew up in country nothern Victoria and the term was used there. I'm sure I learned it from my parents originally who were both country Victorians.
Contributor's comments: I've had this discussion with a friend who went to school in Melbourne and used to 'wag', but when he moved to Sydney, people used to jig school.
Contributor's comments: This was the only term I ever heard used - and I went to school in both the metropolitan area and in the south-west of WA. People who skipped school were 'wagging' school. People answered you by saying 'Oh, I wagged the other day'.
Contributor's comments: I have also heard the word "wag" used (by both of my parents and especially my maternal grand-father) as comment about an individual person who seen to be of mischievious nature or non-conformist to the local group; or even a story-teller or gossip who had a wry sense of humour.
Contributor's comments: I was a student at Turramurra High School 1975-1980. We used the word "wag" to describe skipping a period or more. Jig I discovered was used by other kids I met from elsewhere in Sydney, one in particular who went to school in the Sutherland Shire.
Contributor's comments: To wag school was to skip classes or school usually in the company of others: "Let's wag school today."
Contributor's comments: "Wag" was certainly the term used for truant by my parents - Sydney and NSW country - and by us in the 1960s in Sydney. I first came across "jig" when teaching in Sydney high schools in the late 1970s and it has grown in use since.
Contributor's comments: The term 'wag' was always used when I was going to school in Townsville during the 70s and 80s.
Contributor's comments: Sometimes the word 'wag' was used, sometimes the word 'wop' was used, as in "he wopped school today" or "he was wopping it". 'Wop' and 'wag' were interchangable.
Contributor's comments: Wagging was the term used in ACT during the 70s. Currently, my children use the terms "wagging" and "skipping".
Contributor's comments: Having taught in a number of schools in Victoria, I first encountered the alternative 'to jig' in Metro Sydney schools. I'm curious to learn if this originated in the Aboriginal community?
Contributor's comments: From my experience in Sydney, "wag" seems to be a commonly used term on the north shore, and northern & eastern beaches while "jig" tends to be used by those in the west and south-west.
Contributor's comments: To be truant, local variant to this area is the term wopping or wapping.
Contributor's comments: As a student in the Maitland are we either used the term "wagged school " or "wopped school" when we were truanting.