make/put a dent

idiom

: to decrease something slightly or to make something somewhat weaker

We tried our best to fix the problem, but nothing we did seems to have made a dent.

—often + in

It's going to take more than a new law to make a dent in the city's drug crime.

a vacation that won't put too big a dent in your wallet

Examples of make/put a dent in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The question now is, could the union’s commercials contracts, if ratified, make a dent on future negotiations? —Katie Kilkenny, HollywoodReporter, 20 May 2025

But to really make a dent in Bangladesh's air pollution, many more kilns need to sign on. —Jonathan Lambert, NPR, 18 May 2025

Oxley has previously said 100 million people around the world face physical challenges including paralysis that prevent them from using digital devices; integrating Synchron's tech with Apple's popular products could help make a dent in that figure in the coming years. —Abhimanyu Ghoshal, New Atlas, 14 May 2025

But for all her courthouse coups, Rice didn’t make a dent in the department’s mindset. —Paul Solotaroff, Rolling Stone, 11 May 2025