as in idiot
a stupid person
she's here on scholarship, so she's clearly no dunce
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Recent Examples of dunce
The task its creator, Oliver Selfridge, has set for the machine is to recognize letters like R, A, and T. Unfortunately, Pandemonium is somewhat of a dunce.
—
John Ganz, Harper's Magazine, 22 May 2024
Experienced seamen were in high demand at the time, and I’d been left with a bunch of landlubbers, green hands, and shore dunces.
—Mike O’Brien, The New Yorker, 7 Nov. 2023
What dunce shot himself with a T-shirt cannon?
—Pat Myers, Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2022
Fred, meanwhile, is a mega-wealthy dunce who comes across as too helpless and hapless to grow into the ghostbusting leading man he’s supposed to become.
—Joshua Alston, Variety, 11 Jan. 2023
See all Example Sentences for dunce 
John Ganz, Harper's Magazine, 22 May 2024
Experienced seamen were in high demand at the time, and I’d been left with a bunch of landlubbers, green hands, and shore dunces.
—Mike O’Brien, The New Yorker, 7 Nov. 2023
What dunce shot himself with a T-shirt cannon?
—Pat Myers, Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2022
Fred, meanwhile, is a mega-wealthy dunce who comes across as too helpless and hapless to grow into the ghostbusting leading man he’s supposed to become.
—Joshua Alston, Variety, 11 Jan. 2023
See all Example Sentences for dunce
Thesaurus Entries Near dunce
Cite this Entry
“Dunce.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dunce. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
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