DUNCE
What does "DUNCE" mean?
A person who is slow at learning; a dull-witted or stupid person.
Meanings
- A person regarded as stupid or incapable of learning. He felt like a dunce when he couldn't solve the simple riddle.
Did you know?
- The dunce was originally a genius: 'dunce' derives from John Duns Scotus, a brilliant medieval theologian whose name was turned into an insult by Renaissance critics who scorned his disciples.
Word origin
From the name of the medieval scholar John Duns Scotus; his followers, the 'Dunsmen', were mocked by Renaissance humanists as hairsplitting and resistant to new ideas, so 'dunce' came to mean a fool.
Remember it
DUNCE comes from DUNs Scotus - the smart man whose name got the silly hat.
A little poem
They gave his name a pointed paper crown
and stood the cleverest thinker in the corner-
so even wisdom can be handed down as down.
tercet
Wordplay
- The philosopher Duns Scotus would be stunned to learn he aced the test of history and still got the dunce cap.
What it teaches
Reputation is a coin others spend; even a great name can be minted into an insult.
Quick facts
What does DUNCE mean?
A person who is slow at learning; a dull-witted or stupid person.
Is DUNCE a valid word?
Yes — DUNCE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is DUNCE?
DUNCE has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does DUNCE come from?
From the name of the medieval scholar John Duns Scotus; his followers, the 'Dunsmen', were mocked by Renaissance humanists as hairsplitting and resistant to new ideas, so 'dunce' came to mean a fool.
What can DUNCE teach us?
Reputation is a coin others spend; even a great name can be minted into an insult.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.