DENT

8 definitions found across Law Mind sources

DENTAuthored
The Law Mind • 638 words
Definition
A dent, in its rare legal usage, refers to a blow, stroke, or forcible impact. The term appears in older common law pleading and tort contexts to describe physical force applied to a person or object — often in the context of assault, battery, or damage to property. It is not a term of art in modern legal practice and carries no specialized technical meaning in contemporary law. Its appearance in legal sources is almost exclusively historical.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A small depression or hollow made in a surface by a blow or pressure; also used figuratively to mean a reduction or setback (e.g., "a dent in one's savings"). Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A stroke; a blow. [Obs.]" and "A slight depression, or small notch or hollow, made by a blow or by pressure; an indentation." The legal usage tracks the older, now-obsolete common meaning — a blow or stroke — rather than the modern meaning of a resulting indentation. Researchers encountering "dent" in historical legal documents should read it as describing the act of striking, not the physical mark left behind.
Common Confusion
The archaic use of "dent" to mean a blow can be confused with its modern meaning of the physical depression produced by impact. In early common law pleadings, "by the dent of the sword" or similar phrasing described the instrument or manner of force, not property damage. Modern readers may misread such passages as references to property harm rather than the act of violence itself.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in early English legal records, Year Books, or pre-17th century pleadings may encounter "dent" as a synonym for blow or stroke in descriptions of violent acts. Chaucer's phrase "that dent of thunder," cited in Webster's, reflects the same usage that appears in contemporaneous legal texts. The term is essentially a linguistic artifact and will not appear in modern statutory or case law databases in this legal sense. Because "dent" in modern legal research most commonly appears in property damage contexts — insurance claims, tort actions involving physical damage to vehicles or goods — researchers should be alert to which sense is operative when the term surfaces in older materials. The historical legal meaning (a blow) and the modern legal meaning (property damage from impact) are related but distinct, and conflating them can produce misreadings of older pleadings. The historical dictionary entry retrieved under this search — concerning residence and domicil — appears to be a cataloging error or cross-reference artifact unrelated to "dent." Researchers should disregard it as substantive support for this term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law does not provide a substantive entry for "dent" as an independent legal term of art. The source material retrieved appears to be a misfiled excerpt on residence and domicil, which has no bearing on "dent." This absence is itself informative: by the time major American legal dictionaries were compiled in the late 19th century, "dent" had effectively disappeared from legal vocabulary as a technical term. Webster's 1913 is the most useful source here, explicitly flagging the "stroke; a blow" sense as obsolete by that date. The survival of this usage in early legal texts is a function of legal language's conservatism rather than any distinct legal meaning the word acquired independently. No major legal dictionary in the Law Mind corpus — including Black's, Bouvier's, or Burrill's — appears to carry a substantive entry for "dent" as a term of legal art, which confirms its status as an archaic borrowing from general English rather than a developed legal concept.
Related Terms
Battery Assault Blow (as element of force in pleading) Vis et armis (force and arms) Trespass vi et armis Property damage Indentation (modern tort and insurance context)
DENTmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
May import temporary sojourn or permanent domicil. Illustrative cases are given below. The negatives non-residence and non-resident are in frequent use. Residence. The legal definitions of the cognate terms "residence" and "domicil" vary with the circumstances of the case and the mental constitution of judges and authors. While "residence" generally imports personal presence, one may have a "domicil" in a place from which he is absent most of the time. "Residence" also implies more than a temporary sojourn. 3 Non-residence. Actual cessation to dwell within a State for an uncertain period without definite intention as to a time for returning, although a general intention to return may exist.4 When a residence has once been established by the concurrence of intention and personal presence, continuous personal presence thereafter is not essential, to a continuous residence. Prima facie, a man's "home" is where his family lives. Residence means a fixed and permanent abode or dwelling-place for the time being, as contradistinguished from a mere temporary locality of existence. 6 Ordinarily, the place of one's permanent domicil, rather than his temporary abode.7 In the constitutional requirement that a qualified voter must reside in the district a specified number of days, the "domicil" the place where a man estabR. S. § 5191. same as lishes his abode, makes the seat of his property, and exercises his civil and political rights.1 Denotes permanency of occupation, as distinct from lodging, boarding, or other temporary occupation; but does not include as much as "domicil," which requires an intention continued with residence.2 May require continuous and voluntary abiding, as, to give jurisdiction; not, temporary boarding, though for a long period.3 The precise meaning depends upon the purpose and phraseology of the particular statute. May refer to place of business, domicil, or home.4 In a statute defining political rights, synonymous with "domicil" -a permanent rather than a temporary dwelling-place. "Domicil" is never lost until a new one is acquired; but a person may cease to "reside" in one place and have no fixed habitation elsewhere.5 A citizen of one State who in good faith gives up his residence there, and takes up a permanent residence in another State, acquires citizenship in the new place of domicil. The residence of a corporation is the place where its principal office is located, or its principal operations carried on. But a railroad corporation resides in the counties through which its road passes, and in which it transacts business; at least as regards suits and taxation. The proper seat of residence of a foreign corporation is the State which created it and which continues it in existence. Otherwise, the corporation might reside in a multitude of jurisdictions. But legislation may give it status as a resident. 8 Resident. Literally, one who sits, abides, inhabits, or dwells in a particular place. A person sojourning (i. e., residing) at a place is prima facie residing there, and cannot be a resident 1 Chase v. Miller, 41 Pa. 420 (1862), Woodward, J. 2 [Inhabitants of Jefferson v. Inhabitants of Washington, 19 Me. 300-2 (1841), Whitman, C. J. 3 Charter Oak Bank v. Reed, 45 Conn. 395 (1877), Loomis, J. Tyler v. Murray, 57 Md. 441-43 (1881), Irving, J.; 30 id. 512; 35 id. 169; 15 M. & W. 433; 2 Kent, 430, note. 6 [Hannon v. Grizzard, 89 N. C. 120 (1883), Smith, C. J. See also Fitzgerald v. Arel, 63 Iowa, 106 (1884). • Chicago, &c. R. Co. v. Ohle, 117 U. S. 127 (1886). Thorn v. Central R. Co., 26 N. J. L. 121 (1856); Peo ple v. Fredericks, 48 Barb. 176 (1866); Baldwin v. MisTopsham v. Lewiston, 74 Me. 239 (1882); Greenfield sissippi, &c. R. Co., 5 Iowa, 519 (1857); 8 id. 260; 2 How. v. Camden, ib. 64-65 (1882). * F. resider, to stay: L. re-sidere, to remain back. • [On Yuen Hai Co. v. Ross, 8 Saw. 392 (1882), Deady, J. 4 [Weitkamp v. Loehr, 53 N. Y. Super. Ct. 83 (1886), cases, attachment law. • Re Wrigley, 8 Wend. 140 (1831), Walworth, Ch. * [Reeder v. Holcomb, 105 Mass. 95 (1870), Chapman, Chief Justice. 497; 5 Cranch, 61; 4 McLean, 192; 5 id. 455; 28 Me. 434; 40 Mo, 580; 17 Gratt. 176; 33 How. Pr. 150. 8 Stafford v. American Mills Co., 13 R. I. 311 (1881), Durfee, C. J.
DENTn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
A stroke; a blow. [Obs.] "That dent of thunder." Chaucer. A slight depression, or small notch or hollow, made by a blow or by pressure; an indentation. A blow that would have made a dent in a pound of butter. De Quincey.
DENTv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To make a dent upon; to indent. The houses dented with bullets. Macaulay.
DENTn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
A tooth, as of a card, a gear wheel, etc. Knight.
Dentname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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A village and civil parish in Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, England, previously in South Lakeland district (OS grid ref SD7086). | A surname.
dentnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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A shallow deformation in the surface of an object, produced by an impact. | A minor effect made upon something. | A type of maize/corn with a relatively soft outer hull, and a soft type of starch that shrinks at maturity to leave an indentation in the surface of the kernel. | A sudden negative change, such as loss, damage, weakening, consumption or diminution, especially one produced by an external force, event or action
dentverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
To impact something, producing a dent. | To develop a dent or dents.

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