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dint

/dɪnt/
IPA guide

Other forms: dints

The word dint is used to indicate that something came about through a particular force or means. So if you make a lot of money, that’s probably by dint of hard work.

Dint and dent sound an awful lot alike. The good news is that they are actually related. Dint comes from an Old English word meaning "a hit or strike," often with a sword, and dent later came about as a regional variation in pronunciation. By dint of time, however, dent has come to mean the banged-in place where something hit, and dint is only used in the expression "by dint of" to mean "through the means of."

Definitions of dint
  1. noun
    force or effort; interchangeable with 'means' in the expression 'by means of'
    see moresee less
    type of:
    agency, means, way
    how a result is obtained or an end is achieved
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