dint
dint Lexical Profile
dint Game Scores & Validity
• noun
Force, power, or persistent effort, used almost exclusively in the phrase 'by dint of' to mean 'by means of'.
"She succeeded in passing the bar exam by dint of sheer determination and months of rigorous study."
A hollow, depression, or indentation left in a surface by a blow or pressure; a dent.
"The heavy hailstorm left several noticeable dints in the metal roof of the greenhouse."
• verb
To make a dent, hollow, or impression in a surface by striking or pressing it.
"Dropping the heavy cast-iron skillet accidentally dinted the soft pine floorboards."
Word Nuance & Usage
In modern English, the noun is almost exclusively encountered in the fixed prepositional idiom 'by dint of' (meaning 'by means of' or 'through the force of'), while its literal sense of a physical indentation has been largely superseded by its variant 'dent'.
• Rhymes for dint
Word Origin & Etymology
From Old English dynt, meaning a 'blow' or 'stroke', of Germanic origin and related to Old Norse dyntr. The modern English word 'dent' originally arose as a dialectal variant of 'dint'.