dunce
Americannoun
-
dunces
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of dunce
1520–30; after John Duns Scotus, whose writings were attacked by the humanists as foolish
Explanation
A dunce is a dummy — someone who isn't smart. You might be tempted to call your little brother a dunce when he walks out the door with his shoes on the wrong feet. It's not nice to call someone a dunce, though you might call yourself one when you study the wrong chapter before a big history test or get pulled over for yet another speeding ticket. The word dunce comes from a thirteenth century Scottish philosopher, John Duns Scotus, whose resistance to new ideas and mystical beliefs inspired opponents to equate his followers, the "Duns disciples," to "dullards." Later, some teachers made children wear pointed paper "dunce caps" when they misbehaved.
Vocabulary lists containing dunce
"Marriage is a Private Affair" by Chinua Achebe
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Eleven
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Stella by Starlight
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It’s about as academically relevant to today’s students as Sadie Hawkins Day, and as necessary as a dunce cap.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 11, 2024
If you do think that he could, please step forward and claim your complimentary dunce cap, and infuse it with your own naivete.
From Salon ● May 5, 2023
Recall children in dunce caps, perjurers in pillories, adulterers branded with scarlet letters.
From New York Times ● Mar. 18, 2022
In my view, the biggest mistake scientists make is to claim that this is all somehow simple and therefore to imply that anyone who doesn't get it is a dunce.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 8, 2021
Why fabricate a tale in which one comes off as a self-confessed dunce?
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
People who say L.A. has no seasons are unobservant dunces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2021
So instead of bridging that expertise gap, surrounding himself with proficiency, he’s done the opposite: boost his own comparative abilities by surrounding himself with a confederacy of dunces.
From Slate ● Feb. 26, 2020
The internet abets the problem, he says: Unfiltered by editors, it levels the playing field between experts and "dunces."
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 2, 2020
That luck is a hugely underestimated factor in football and post-game analysis is often harshly binary with winning coaches tactical geniuses and losers dunces when, in reality, things could easily have gone either way.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 5, 2018
“You are dunces, both of you, believing that rot,” I say.
From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
