Dunce

Dunce is a mild insult in English meaning "a person who is slow at learning or stupid".

The etymology given by Richard Stanyhurst is that the word is derived from the name of the Scottish scholastic theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus.

[8] A visual depiction of the hat was first shown in the 1727 edition of The New England Primer,[4] and the term dunce's cap is recorded as early as 1791.

[4] Scotus apparently believed that the hat would funnel knowledge into the brain, and in the centuries before his followers became unpopular, was a social signal of an intelligent person.

[4][11] A similar cap made of paper and called a capirote was prescribed for sinners and penitents during the Spanish Inquisition.