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Definition of dunce noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

dunce

noun
 
/dʌns/
 
/dʌns/
(old-fashioned)
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  1. a person, especially a child at school, who is stupid or slow to learn
    Oxford Collocations DictionaryDunce is used before these nouns:
    • cap
    See full entry
    Word Originearly 16th cent.: originally an epithet for a follower of John Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), whose followers were ridiculed by 16th-cent. humanists and reformers as enemies of learning.
See dunce in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

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