A dunce is someone who is not particularly clever, somewhat slow in learning. It is ironic that the origin of the word goes back to one of the cleverest men in the Middle Ages, a Scots Catholic called John Duns who lived in the last half of the 1200s. He was generally known as super clever and was even given the nickname Doctor Subtle for his way of dealing with difficult philosophical and theological issues. This superior cleverness was very irritating and his way of splitting hairs made him quite unpopular. The first reference to him in English was by the Protestant Tyndale (who introduced Thanksgiving to English). He wrote that “a Duns man would make xx. distinctions”.
Fittingly enough, the first reference to dunce as a stupid person came not much later. It also originated from a book relating to Scotland Holinshed Chronicles, written by Francis Thynne who seemed to know his way around English society of the late 1500s, but did not really manage to take advantage of his knowledge. Anyway, he gives a definition of a dunce as a period who is “senseless or without learning”. This is the meaning which has been around since then. And so perhaps it is suitable that Jonathan Swift of Gulliver’s Travel fame writes true words about dunces in such an offhand manner in his satirical essay Thoughts on Various Subjects “When a true genius appears you known him by this sign – that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him”.
I am sure John Duns would have approved.
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