A satirical poem or work that mocks dunces and fools, named after Alexander Pope's famous poem 'The Dunciad' from 1728.
From 'dunce' plus the suffix '-iad' (from Greek, meaning a narrative or epic poem, as in 'Iliad'). Pope's 'The Dunciad' was a lengthy mock-heroic poem attacking literary and intellectual rivals, and the term now refers to similar satirical works.
Alexander Pope's 'Dunciad' was basically the 18th-century version of a roast battle—he turned his enemies into characters in an epic poem specifically designed to humiliate them, and it was SO savage that the word itself became a brand name for literary mockery.
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