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

There is, however, a widespread and underused class of real estate that holds the potential to make a dent in this figure. —Irina Ivanova, Fortune, 13 Apr. 2024

With mentorship from the N.W.A star, Yo-Yo delivered a trio of albums that received critical acclaim but failed to make a dent on the Billboard 200. —Liz Sanchez, Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2024

Plastic producers need to make a dent in the problem The Great Lakes don't have currents like oceans do, so the litter that people see didn't wash up from far away. —Caitlin Looby, Journal Sentinel, 11 Apr. 2024

The incident was nothing short of perverse: Israel targeted and killed people trying to make a dent in the imminent famine that Israel itself has engineered as part of its strategy to demoralize and destroy, in whole or in part*, the Palestinian population. —Longreads, 5 Apr. 2024

Overall, the advanced recycling plants are struggling to make a dent in the roughly 36 million tons of plastic Americans discard each year, which is more than any other country. —Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times, 5 Apr. 2024

Cloud Apartments hopes to use its affordable housing approach to make a dent in the housing woes nationwide. —George Avalos, The Mercury News, 4 Apr. 2024

The steep selloff has put a dent in former President Donald Trump’s net worth. —Matt Egan, CNN, 12 Apr. 2024

But objections over Gaza do not appear to have put a dent in the president's war chest thus far. —USA TODAY, 6 Apr. 2024