This week we continue our vocabulary-building series, “The Closing Word.” Each week we provide a new word to help build your vocabulary and show you an example of how to use it.
This week’s closing word:
dint
Pronounced: (dint)
Noun:
force or effort; interchangeable with ‘means’ in the expression ‘by means of’
From Vocabulary.com: “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.”
Example:
“While he was technically a rookie agent, he possessed a great deal of knowledge by dint of his mother’s long career in commercial real estate.”
