dunce's cap
- noun
- /ˈdʌnsɪz kæp/
- Literature
:
gorro de burro
- "All I have to do is point to someone, and Miss Walker will sit him in the corner with a dunce's cap smack over his head.
Examples
-
On his head, instead of a crown, there had turned out to be a dunce's cap.
Fiction book (1999) -
During the lesson, everyone laughed when the boy was forced to wear a dunce's cap for his lack of participation.
-
In class, he felt embarrassed wearing a dunce's cap after being called out for not understanding the lesson.
-
The teacher placed a dunce's cap on the student as a reminder to pay attention and engage more in his studies.
Synonyms
1
9.2
A pointed paper hat teachers put on a student as punishment in old classrooms
A cone-shaped paper hat teachers put on students' heads to shame them long ago
Antonyms
How Punitive
39
6.1
- Formal
71
4.6
129
2.2
- Literature
7
3.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
dunce's + cap
The meaning is directly built from 'dunce' (a slow or foolish student) + 'cap' (a hat): it literally denotes a hat for a dunce. Although the practice is historical/archaic, the composition is transparent and a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The noun dunce's cap may come from a classroom punishment: one popular story says a slow student was made to wear a tall, pointed paper cap and sit in the corner so everyone could see them. The pointed cap and lonely corner made the student look foolish, so the phrase became a symbol for being 'stupid' and for old, unfair teaching.