DINT

dint (dInt), noun.

Plural: Dints.

Etymology: From Old English dynt. The vocables dent (hollow in a superfice) and dunt seem to be variants of dint.

1. A stroke or blow; especially one made with a weapon. Obsolete acceptation.

2. The force of a blow; hence, the force of an attack, assault; hence, the force or power of anything. Archaic acceptation except in the phrase by (the) dint of, which seems to have had originally the literal signification of by the stroke of (Compare this quotation from Edward Gibbon: “Many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe”; and compare the French phrases à coup de, à coups de) Hence, by (the) dint of is modernly used with the meaning of by means of; by force of; by cause of.

To repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind.

Edgar Poe

[…] by dint of great perseverance, they traced him [Von Kempelen] to a garret in an old house of seven stories.

Edgar Poe

Had I been a military hero, I should have made gunpowder useless; for I should have blown up all my adversaries by dint of stratagem, turning their own devices upon them.

Samuel Richardson (Clarissa)

By dint of relating the story very often, and ornamenting it (according to village report) with a few flourishes suggested by the various hearers from time to time, he had come by degrees to tell it with great effect; and 'Is that all?' after the climax, was not what he was accustomed to.

Charles Dickens (Barnaby Rudge)

Somehow or other, by dint of pushing and pulling, they did attain the street at last.

Charles Dickens (Barnaby Rudge)

About midnight the enemy made their attack with three regiments, and by dint of superior numbers forced their, way into the works at various points.

Robert Southey (History of the Peninsular War)

By pure dint of day-labour, frugality, and foresight.

Berkeley (Word to Wise, 1749)

By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to perfection.

Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

A few yards below the brow of the hill on which he paused a team of horses made its appearance, having reached the place by dint of half an hour's serpentine progress from the bottom of the immense declivity.

Thomas Hardy (Jude the Obscure)

'I can hear you, mother.' But, it was only by dint of bending down to her ear, and at the same time attentively watching the lips as they moved, that she could link such faint and broken sounds into any chain of connexion.

Charles Dickens (Hard Times)

[…] by dint of being excessively obvious.

Edgar Poe

It was a great thing to be asked to such parties; and not less so to be invited to the early CONVERSAZIONE, which, in spite of fashion, by dint of the best coffee, the finest tea, and CHASSE CAFE that would have called the dead to life, she contrived now and then to assemble in her saloon already mentioned, at the unnatural hour of eight in the evening.

Walter Scott (Chronicles of The Canongate)

*** Under, within the dint of: exposed to the stroke of; hence, exposed to. (Archaic constructions)

3. (This acceptation seems influenced by indent and its conjugates.) What is left by denting; the vestige of a stroke in a superfice; a vestige or impression made by a blow or by pressure, in a hard or plastic surface; a hollow or an impression in a surface, such as is made by a blow with an instrument; hence, an indentation.

Synonyms: A gap, notch, nick.

Equivalents in French: empreinte, impression, creusure; in Italian impronta and in Spanish abolladura, bolladura.

[…] there stood the portal still, as grim and dark and strong as ever, and, saving for the dints upon its battered surface, quite unchanged.

Charles Dickens (Barnaby Rudge)

Make the cut smooth and even […] without dints or ridges.

Ralph Austen (Treatise of Fruit Trees, 1657)

***It is also used metaphorically, referring to an human surface or other natural things.

My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his fore-finger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves; that they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all.

Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

[He] is distinctly aware of a dint in his heart.

Charles Dickens (Our Mutual Friend)

Conjugates of dint: dintless, dunt is apparently a variant of dint, dint (verb), dinted, dinting, undinted.