Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A depression in a surface made by pressure or a blow.
  • noun Informal A significant, usually diminishing effect or impression.
  • noun Informal Meaningful progress; headway.
  • intransitive verb To make a dent in.
  • intransitive verb To become dented.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An abbreviation of dental;
  • noun of dentist;
  • noun of dentistry.
  • noun A notch; an indentation.
  • noun A tooth of a comb, metallic brush, or card.
  • noun A salient tooth or knob in the works of a lock.
  • noun A tooth of a gear-wheel.
  • noun A cane or wire of the reed frame in a weavers' loom.
  • To make a dent of small hollow in; mark with dents or impressions.
  • To aim a denting or effective blow.
  • To notch; indent.
  • noun A stroke; a blow.
  • noun Force; weight; dint.
  • noun a hollow mark made by a blow or by pressure; a small hollow or depression on the surface of a solid or a plastic body; an indented impression; a dint.
  • Marked by a dent or impression; dented; only in the phrase dent corn, Indian corn which has a depression in each kernel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A stroke; a blow.
  • noun A slight depression, or small notch or hollow, made by a blow or by pressure; an indentation.
  • transitive verb To make a dent upon; to indent.
  • noun (Mach.) A tooth, as of a card, a gear wheel, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun engineering A tooth, as of a card, a gear wheel, etc.
  • noun A shallow deformation in the surface of an object, produced by an impact.
  • noun by extension, informal A sudden negative change, such as loss, damage, weakening, consumption or diminution, especially one produced by an external force, event or action
  • verb transitive To impact something, producing a dent.
  • verb intransitive To develop a dent or dents.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an impression in a surface (as made by a blow)
  • noun an appreciable consequence (especially a lessening)
  • noun a depression scratched or carved into a surface
  • verb make a depression into

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French; see dentist.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English dent, variant of dint, blow, from Old English dynt.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French, from Latin dens, dentis, tooth. See tooth.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English dent, dente, dint ("blow, strike, dent"), from Old English dynt ("blow, strike, the mark or noise of a blow"), from Proto-Germanic *duntiz (“a blow”). Akin to Old Norse dyntr ("dint"). More at dint.

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Examples

  • Congressional Democrats tonight are blasting the president's budget as well, saying the president's new budget is filled with what they call dent and deception.

    CNN Transcript Feb 5, 2007 2007

  • Clearly the print space that you are alluding to was probably the singular largest area where there were some shortfalls in the supply chain, but they were not large enough, Matt, to make a - what I call a dent in our overall growth Q3 to Q4.

    SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2010

  • Clearly the print space that you are alluding to was probably the singular largest area where there were some shortfalls in the supply chain, but they were not large enough, Matt, to make a - what I call a dent in our overall growth Q3 to Q4.

    SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2010

  • Whether GOTV efforts from either side, however, will make much of a dent is hard to predict.

    Home Stretch: Meg and Jerry on Air and Ground 2010

  • I said it would be simpler to get the discount since the dent is cosmetic not structural.

    gnar. da_lj 2009

  • I am a claims investigator with a major auto insurance company, and for him to say he did not feel the impact that caused that dent is complete BS.

    Gerry Sucks, Part 43 2008

  • Tony on Jul 31, 2008 first off, tony nothing TOUCHES STAR WARS AND NEVER WILL. everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr second. i agree on some level about the rouges gallery. if you get a mass break out of arkham asylum. like dent is alive and joker on the inside work to brake them out. or some thing like that. the critic on Aug 1, 2008

    Contest: Where Could The Dark Knight Go Next? « FirstShowing.net 2008

  • They look as though they'd dent from the impact of being looked at too hard.

    Tin Boxes 2008

  • I think that Harvey dent is indeed dead and the joker is locked up and everyone in Gotham hates batman.

    Batman’s New Archvillain: Who’s Next? » Scene-Stealers 2008

  • They look as though they'd dent from the impact of being looked at too hard.

    Lance Mannion: 2008

Comments

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  • Dente means tooth, while dent can be translated as ammaccatura/impronta.

    Your wife has such beautiful dents. You must really love her.

    March 23, 2009

  • Weirdent thinks that people's bodies can get dented. I suppose it could happen to Ironman, or Maggie Thatcher.

    March 23, 2009