Word.ws English Dictionary

dunce

/dʌns/

dunce noun: an unintelligent person.

dunce: A dunce cap sits on a wooden bench
Photo by Anna King on Unsplash

Noun

dunce (plural dunces)

  1. An unintelligent person.
    • When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.c. 1713, Jonathan Swift, “Thoughts on Various Subjects”, in The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, volume 5
    • [...] Dunce, / Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, / After a life spent training for the sight!1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XXX

dunce meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

dunce in Tamil

மந்தபுதித்தியுள்ளவன், படிப்பில் பின்தங்கிய

dunce in Urdu

غبی

dunce in Malayalam

മന്ദബുദ്ധി, മടയൻ, മണ്ടശിരോമണി

dunce in Kannada

ದಡ್ಡ, ಮಂಕ, ಮರುಳ, ಮಳ್ಳ

Synonyms of dunce

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of dunce

Forms of dunce

pluraldunces

Plural of dunce: dunces

Origin of dunce

1530, named after John Duns Scotus (c. 1266–1308). Scotus was ironically a well-known Scottish thinker; his followers, however, opposed the philosophers of the Renaissance, and thus "dunce" was first used to describe someone rejecting new knowledge in 1530; later, any person deemed stupid.

Words formed from dunce

Phrases with dunce

Words that rhyme with dunce

Questions about dunce

What does dunce mean?
Dunce means an unintelligent person.
What is dunce in Tamil?
Dunce in Tamil is மந்தபுதித்தியுள்ளவன், படிப்பில் பின்தங்கிய. See Dunce meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is dunce?
Dunce is a noun.
How do you pronounce dunce?
Dunce is pronounced /dʌns/.
What is the plural of dunce?
The plural of dunce is dunces.

Words near dunce in the dictionary

  1. Duncans
  2. Duncans Creek
  3. Duncanson
  4. Duncansons
  5. Duncanville
  6. dunce
  7. dunce cap
  8. dunce caps
  9. dunce hat
  10. dunce hats
  11. dunce's cap

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dunce (page history and authors); dunce (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dunce (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dunce (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dunce (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dunce.wav.

Cite this entry: “dunce.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dunce. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.