Dunce is a mild insult in English meaning a person who is slow at learning or stupid. In art, dunces are often comedically shown wearing paper cone hats – dunce caps – marked with 'dunce', 'dumb', or 'D'. Schoolchildren were sometimes compelled to wear a dunce cap and to stand or sit on a stool in the corner as a form of punishment for misbehaving or for failing to demonstrate that they had properly performed their studies.