dunce cap

1. 1.

   a cone-shaped paper hat formerly placed on the head of slow or lazy pupils

   Synonymsdunce's capfool's cap

   Broaderhat

Questions about dunce cap

What does dunce cap mean?

dunce cap means "a cone-shaped paper hat formerly placed on the head of slow or lazy pupils".

What is another word for dunce cap?

Close synonyms include dunce's cap, fool's cap. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is dunce cap a common word?

dunce cap is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.