Added 9 October 2026
dunce
/dʌns/ noun
In Latin: barcala, bārō First recorded: 1530 Wiktionary
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about dunce at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
Origin
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.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)