bedunce

English

Etymology

From be- +‎ dunce.

Verb

bedunce (third-person singular simple present bedunces, present participle beduncing, simple past and past participle bedunced)

1. (transitive, archaic, rare) To treat as, or reduce to, a dunce; to make stupid.
   • 1866, Oliver Goldsmith, The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, page 515:

     After he has sufficiently bedunced us through several pages, he at last has the tenderness to answer to our particular objections, and that with sufficient perplexity.

   • 1843, Catherine Grace Frances Gore, The Birthright, page 98:

     […] reamsful of financial or statistical calculations; the figures of which, when duly emitted in the House, sufficed to bedunce the brains of five hundred wiser men; […]