dunce
pronunciation
How to pronounce dunce in British English:
UK [dʌns]
How to pronounce dunce in American English:
US [dʌns]
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- Noun:
- these words are used to express a low opinion of someone's intelligence
Word Origin
- dunce
- dunce: [16] Dunce originated as a contemptuous term for those who continued in the 16th century to adhere to the theological views of the Scottish scholar John Duns Scotus (c. 1265–1308). Renaissance philosophers ridiculed them as narrow-minded hair-splitters, and so before long the application of the word spread metaphorically to any ‘stuffy pedant’ in general, and hence, through the implication of a lack of true intellect, to ‘stupid person’. The conical dunce’s cap seems to have originated in the 19th century.
- dunce (n.)
- "dullard," 1570s, from earlier Duns disciple "follower of John Duns Scotus" (c. 1265-1308), Scottish scholar of philosophy and theology supposed to have been born at Duns in Berwickshire. By 16c., humanist reaction against medieval theology singled him out as the type of the hairsplitting scholastic. It became a general term of reproach applied to more conservative philosophical opponents by 1520s, later extended to any dull-witted student.
Example
- 1. I hadn 't noticed , what a dunce !
- 2. The warhead shown in the schematics had the familiar " dunce cap " shape of the original north korean no dong missile , which iran had acquired in the mid-1990s .
- 3. When he changed his school to brighton , his reputation as a dunce followed him .
- 4. God just sit me in a corner and put a dunce hat on me .
- 5. I alway thought that I was a dunce , how come I treated myself as wastes down in the dumps ?