dint
/dɪnt/
dint noun: especially in by dint of: force, power. Also the pronunciation spelling of didn’t.
Noun
dint (countable and uncountable, plural dints)
- Especially in by dint of: force, power.
- O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel / The dint of pity1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- It was by dint of passing strength / That he moved the massy stone at length.1805, Walter Scott, “(please specify the page)”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], and A[rchibald] Constable and Co....
- The mark left by a blow; an indentation or impression made by violence; a dent.
- [D]epe wͭ dynt the ſword enforced furſt / had ranſakt through his ribs ⁊ ſwete whyte breſt at once had burſt.1560 April 13 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Virgil, “The Nynth Boke”, in Thomas Phaer, transl., The Nyne Fyrst Bookes of the Eneidos of Virgil Converted into Englishe Vearse […], with So Muche...
- His hands had made a dint, and hurt his maid; / Explored her limb by limb, and feared to find / So rude a gripe had left a livid mark behind.1717, John Dryden [et al.], “Book 10”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
- A blow, stroke, especially dealt in a fight.
- Much daunted with that dint, her sence was dazd […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- Between them cross-bows stood, and engines wrought / To cast a stone, a quarry, or a dart, // From whence, like thunder's dint, or lightnings new, / Against the bulwarks stones and lances flew.1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Eleuenth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […]...
Verb
dint (third-person singular simple present dints, present participle dinting, simple past and past participle dinted)
- To dent.
- Your helmet was dinted in as if by a great shot.1854, W. Harrison Ainsworth, The Star-Chamber, Volume 2
- And, in that moment came one, fierce and wild of aspect, in dinted casque and rusty mail who stood and watched--ah God!1915, Jeffery Farnol, Beltane The Smith
Also used as
dint is also the pronunciation spelling of didn’t.
Examples of dint in a sentence
- If anyone so much as dints my car, they'll be in deep shtuck.
- He succeeded by dint of effort, not talent.
- By dint of having principles at all, DWeb became a smaller tent than Web3.
Forms of dint
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | dints |
| alternative form | dunt |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | dints |
| present participle | dinting |
| past participle | dinted |
| past | dinted |
Origin of dint
From Middle English dint, dent, dünt, from Old English dynt (“dint, blow, strike, stroke, bruise, stripe; the mark left by a blow; the sound or noise made by a blow, thud”), from Proto-Germanic *duntiz (“a blow”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰen- (“to strike, hit”). Cognate with Swedish dialectal dunt, Icelandic dyntr (“a dint”). Doublet of dent.
From Middle English dinten, from the noun. Compare Old Norse dynta.
Words formed from dint
Words that rhyme with dint
Questions about dint
- What does dint mean?
- Dint means especially in by dint of: force, power.
- What part of speech is dint?
- Dint can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce dint?
- Dint is pronounced /dɪnt/.
- What is the plural of dint?
- The plural of dint is dints.
Words near dint in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dint (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dint.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dint.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dint. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.