English

Alternative forms

• dunt

Noun

dint ‎(countable and uncountable, plural dints)

1. (obsolete) A blow, stroke, especially dealt in a fight.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.i:

     Much daunted with that dint, her sence was dazd […].

   • 1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, XI, xxxi:

     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.

2. Force, power; especially in by dint of.
   • William Shakespeare (c.1564–1616)

     Now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel / The dint of pity.

   • Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

     It was by dint of passing strength / That he moved the massy stone at length.

3. The mark left by a blow; an indentation or impression made by violence; a dent.
   • Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

     every dint a sword had beaten in it [the shield]

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

Derived terms

• by dint of

Translations

Verb

dint ‎(third-person singular simple present dints, present participle dinting, simple past and past participle dinted)

1. To dent
   • 1915, Jeffery Farnol, Beltane The Smith:

     And, in that moment came one, fierce and wild of aspect, in dinted casque and rusty mail who stood and watched--ah God!

   • 1854, W. Harrison Ainsworth, The Star-Chamber, Volume 2:

     Your helmet was dinted in as if by a great shot.

Etymology 2

Contraction

dint

1. Eye dialect spelling of didn’t.

Anagrams

• NDTI, tind

Friulian

Etymology

From Latin dēns, dentem. Compare Italian dente, Romansch dent, Venetian dénte, Romanian dinte, French dent, Spanish diente.

Noun

dint m ‎(plural dinčh)

1. tooth

Derived terms

• dintidure

Middle English

Noun

dint (plural dints)

1. dent
2. blow, stroke
   • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,

     Ayein his dyntez sore ye may not yow defende.

Walloon

Etymology

From Old French dent, from Latin dēns, dentem.

Noun

dint f

1. (anatomy) tooth