What is the origin of the phrase playing hooky? 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
What is the origin of the phrase hunky dory? Nobody really knows There's no agreed derivation of the expression 'hunky-dory' It is American and the earliest example of it in print that I have found is from a collection of US songs, George Christy's Essence of Old Kentucky, 1862
etymology - What is the origin of cattywampus - English Language . . . He frisked his caudality around in a lively manner, and seemed as self-sufficient as if he had played "hookey" from school in entire week without having been detected But the meaning of catawampus here isn't entirely clear—it may mean "dangerously or insolently," rather than "obliquely "