dunce

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“
They would consider me a dunce were they to suspect me of any such commonplace intent.

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun A stupid person; a dolt.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • If I called the police and Morelli wasn't there I'd look like a dunce, and the police might not be so anxious to come out and help me the second time around. —  One For The Money
  • I pity poor Jenny[18]—but her husband is a dunce, and with respect to him she loses little by her deafness. —  The Journal to Stella
  • But the idea that we treat him like a dunce is just inaccurate. —  Media Matters for America - Limbaugh Wire
  • What a dunce--how blind I had been The cipher was not difficult to read now. —  The Paternoster Ruby
  • Do you think it is natural for a dunce (I repeat the word), who has been in the habit of writing the most childish nonsense, to break on the world suddenly as a genius, and startle every one with her wonderful thoughts? —  Aunt Judith The Story of a Loving Life
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

simpleton ·  ignoramus ·  ninny ·  dolt ·  wiseacre ·  dullard ·  coot ·  bungler ·  sciolist ·  boot-jack ·  blockhead ·  coonskin
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. After John Duns Scotus, whose writings and philosophy were ridiculed in the 16th century.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English also dunse, duns, Duns (later G. Duns), orig. in the phrase Duns man, Duns-man, that is, a follower of Duns (also written Dunse, Dunce), whose full name was John Duns Scotus, a celebrated scholastic theologian, ealled the “Subtle Doctor.” He died in 1308. His followers, called Scotists, held control of the universities till the reformation set in, when the reformers and humanists, regarding them as obstinate opponents of sound learning and of progress, and their philosophy as sophistical and barren, applied the term Duns man, which at first meant simply a Scotist, to any caviling, sophistical opponent; and so it came finally to mean any dull, obstinate person.
 

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/dəns/
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