Dunse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An old-fashioned term for a slow-witted person who is dull and lacks understanding
2. A dim-witted individual, once used as a mocking word for someone who is foolish and slow to learn
3. Describing a person regarded as stupid or obtuse, a dated word for a blockhead

Etymology: "Dunse" is a dull-witted fool, and the word has a nice twist: its origin is tied to a real person, the 13th-century Scottish theologian John Duns Scotus. His followers, the Scotists, were known for their intricate, hair-splitting arguments, and after the Renaissance humanists mocked medieval scholastic thinking, the name became aByword for a dull, pedantic dullard. Some English writers were deliberately rude to the scholastic philosophers, and "Duns" was one of their favourite insults, so the word grew from a surname to a term of abuse. The word appears in English in the 16th century, and it was used by writers such as Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson in satire. Its sense of stupidity or obtuseness came from the reputation of the medieval schoolmen as tedious, overly subtle arguers rather than from any actual dullness in Duns Scotus's own work, which was highly original and sharp.