Verb I'm afraid I dented the wall pretty badly when I was hammering in that nail. Many of the cans were badly dented. Some types of metal dent more easily than others. The team's confidence has been dented by a recent series of losses.
Word History
Etymology
Verb
Middle English, short for indenten to make dents in, indent
Noun (2)
French, literally, tooth, from Latin dent-, dens
Combining form
Middle English denti-, from Latin, from dent-, dens tooth — more at tooth