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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
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
See all Example Sentences for dunce 
Dictionary Entries Near dunce
Cite this Entry
“Dunce.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dunce. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
dunce
nounan 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
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