dunce

noun

ˈdən(t)s 

: a slow-witted or stupid person

Did you know?

The irony of dunce lies in the fact that this synonym of dullard is derived from the name of one of the most brilliant thinkers of the Middle Ages, John Duns Scotus. So ingenious were the theological and metaphysical speculations of this thinker that he was given the name “the Subtle Doctor.” However, in the 16th century, his followers became a conservative element in English universities, and they tended to resist the new learning of humanism. As result, dunsman and the shortened form duns (later respelled as we have it today), became terms of scorn, meaning first “sophist” or “pedant” and gradually taking on the modern sense “slow-witted person.”

Synonyms

• airhead
• birdbrain
• blockhead
• bonehead
• bubblehead
• chowderhead
• chucklehead
• clodpoll
• clodpole
• clot [British]
• cluck
• clunk
• cretin
• cuddy [British dialect]
• cuddie
• deadhead
• dim bulb [slang]
• dimwit
• dip
• dodo
• dolt
• donkey
• doofus [slang]
• dope
• dork [slang]
• dullard
• dum-dum
• dumbbell
• dumbhead
• dummkopf
• dummy
• dunderhead
• fathead
• gander
• golem
• goof
• goon
• half-wit
• hammerhead
• hardhead
• idiot
• ignoramus
• imbecile
• jackass
• know-nothing
• knucklehead
• lamebrain
• loggerhead [chiefly dialect]
• loon
• lump
• lunkhead
• meathead
• mome [archaic]
• moron
• mug [chiefly British]
• mutt
• natural
• nimrod [slang]
• nincompoop
• ninny
• ninnyhammer
• nit [chiefly British]
• nitwit
• noddy
• noodle
• numskull
• numbskull
• oaf
• pinhead
• prat [British]
• ratbag [chiefly Australian]
• saphead
• schlub [slang]
• shlub
• schnook [slang]
• simpleton
• stock
• stupe
• stupid
• thickhead
• turkey
• woodenhead
• yahoo
• yo-yo

Examples of dunce in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The task its creator, Oliver Selfridge, has set for the machine is to recognize letters like R, A, and T. Unfortunately, Pandemonium is somewhat of a dunce. —John Ganz, Harper's Magazine, 22 May 2024

Experienced seamen were in high demand at the time, and I’d been left with a bunch of landlubbers, green hands, and shore dunces. —Mike O’Brien, The New Yorker, 7 Nov. 2023

What dunce shot himself with a T-shirt cannon? —Pat Myers, Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2022

Fred, meanwhile, is a mega-wealthy dunce who comes across as too helpless and hapless to grow into the ghostbusting leading man he’s supposed to become. —Joshua Alston, Variety, 11 Jan. 2023

Word History

Etymology

John Duns Scotus, whose once accepted writings were ridiculed in the 16th century

First Known Use

1567, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing dunce

• dunce cap

Kids Definition

dunce

noun

ˈdən(t)s 

: a mentally dull or stupid person

Etymology

an altered form of earlier duns, from the name John Duns Scotus 1266?–1308 a Scottish religious teacher whose writings came to be ridiculed in the 16th century