Word.ws English Dictionary

duncely

duncely adjective: like, characteristic of, or pertaining to a dunce or dunces.

Adjective

duncely (comparative more duncely, superlative most duncely)

  1. Like, characteristic of, or pertaining to a dunce or dunces.
    • More widely, Pope caricatures in these chaotic manoeuvres aspects of duncely writing which contravene the rules of nature: [...]2002, Paul Baines, Alexander Pope - Page 141
    Synonyms:
    duncish, duncelike

Adverb

duncely (comparative more duncely, superlative most duncely)

  1. In the manner of a dunce; as a dunce; in the way of scholastic philosophy.

Synonyms of duncely

Forms of duncely

Adjective
comparativemore duncely
superlativemost duncely
Adverb
comparativemore duncely
superlativemost duncely

Origin of duncely

From dunce + -ly (adjectival suffix).

From dunce + -ly (adverbial suffix).

Questions about duncely

What does duncely mean?
Duncely means like, characteristic of, or pertaining to a dunce or dunces.
What part of speech is duncely?
Duncely can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near duncely in the dictionary

  1. duncehead
  2. dunceheads
  3. duncehood
  4. dunceish
  5. duncelike
  6. duncely
  7. dunceries
  8. duncery
  9. dunces
  10. duncey
  11. dunch

Source and license

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