Where did the term "hooky," as in playing hooky from going to school, come from and when does it apply?

"Hookey" (also spelled "hooky") apparently developed from the colloquial phrase "hooky-crooky" common in the early 19th century, which meant "dishonest or underhanded." The connection between the two phrases becomes clearer when we recall that to "play hookey" properly, one had to pretend to go to school. The child would head out the door at the proper time, schoolbooks in hand, and only when safely out of sight of home would the little nipper's true itinerary become evident.


"Hooky-crooky," to return to our subject, came from "by hook or by crook," meaning "by any means or tactic, fair or foul." Although this phrase first occurs in print way back in 1380 and is still common today, no one is sure of what the hook and crook were. One theory is that while tenants on English manors were not allowed to cut trees for firewood, the lord of the manor permitted them to have all the branches they could pull down with a shepherd's crook or a curved knife on a pole called a "hook."

http://www.word-detective.com/070599.html

I changed the original spelling in the question from "hookie" to "hooky" as that appears to be the spelling most often used in 'standard' dictionaries.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hooky
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hooky#English

In Australia we use the term 'wag' or 'wagging school'. You made me wonder where that came from and seeing as I researched it I thought I'd share it with anyone that was interested.

WAG -- verb. Australian. to play truant. A variant of the older British form "hop the wag," in which the wag in question is a shortening of waggon.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/42/messages/1013.html

We used to skive (off) things. Wag and hooky were terms totally unknown to us except in what we regarded as rather old-fashioned books. (Merseyside, UK)