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Dunce vs Duffer - What's the difference?

dunce | duffer | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between dunce and duffer

is that dunce is one backward in book learning; a child or other person dull or weak in intellect; a dullard; a dolt while duffer is an incompetent or clumsy person.

As an adjective duffer is

comparative of duff.

dunce

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • One backward in book learning; a child or other person dull or weak in intellect; a dullard; a dolt.

    • Derived terms

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    References

    duffer

    English

    Adjective

    (head)
  • (duff)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (informal) An incompetent or clumsy person.
  • *1899 ,
  • *:Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at the business.
  • (sports) A player having little skill, especially a golfer who duffs.
  • (archaic) A pedlar or hawker, especially one selling cheap or substandard goods.
  • (archaic) Cheap or substandard goods sold by a duffer .
  • A cow that does not produce milk.
  • * 1908 , Proceedings of the Agricultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago , Volume 8, page 116,
    • We have some good cows in this State, but, unfortunately, we have too many duffer cows that are not only being fed and milked at a loss hut are eating up a portion of the profit of the good cow which is being milked alongside them.
  • * 1934''', Victorian Department of Agriculture, ''Journal of Agriculture , Volume 32, page 293,
    • The truth is that cattlemen love a typical cow for her beauty and symmetry of form ; but every herd-testing dairyman knows that an ugly animal may be a good producer, while many a beautiful cow is a duffer .
  • (Australia, dated) A cattle thief; one who alters the brands of cattle.
  • * 2004 , Deborah Bird Rose, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation , page 112,
    • Judy was an associate (‘stud’) of a Whitefella cattle duffer named Brigalow Bill (aka WJJ Ward).
  • * 2010 , Evan McHugh, The Drovers
    • In the mid-1860s a duffer' named James Harnell, who went by the nickname Narran Jim, had taken stock he?d stolen from the district around Culgoa and Narran rivers across Queensland to the Cooper.An alert Bulloo Downs stockman contacted the police, and when Police Inspector Fitzgerald and eight Aboriginal troopers tracked Narran Jim and surrounded him while he was sleeping, the cattle ' duffer woke to find himself looking down the barrel of Fitzgerald?s revolver and seven years in jail.
  • * 2011 , Clancy Tucker, Gunnedah Hero , unnumbered page,
    • The cattle duffer ?s escape would have been impeded by those young ones. Calves can be unruly unless you move them carefully in the company of their mothers.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Anagrams

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