Stent or stint?
stent is a noun meaning “A slender tube inserted into a blood vessel, a ureter or the oesophagus in…”; stint is a verb meaning “To be sparing or mean”. Use stent as a noun and stint as a verb (stint is also a noun: “A period of time spent doing or being something; a spell”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) stint is about 6.2 times as common as stent.
What is the difference between stent and stint?
| stent | stint | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | verb, noun |
| Meaning | A slender tube inserted into a blood vessel, a ureter or the oesophagus in order to provide support and to prevent disease-induced closure To insert a stent or tube into a blood vessel | To be sparing or mean To restrain within certain limits; to bound; to restrict to a scant allowance A period of time spent doing or being something; a spell |
| Example | none recorded | The next party you throw, don't stint on the beer |
| Forms | stents | stints, stinting, stinted |
| Pronunciation | /stɛnt/ /stɪnt/ | /stɪnt/ |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words | 4.1 times per million words |
Sources: stent and stint in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of stent and stint
stent
- 1
A slender tube inserted into a blood vessel, a ureter or the oesophagus in order to provide support and to prevent disease-induced closure
- 2
To insert a stent or tube into a blood vessel
stint
- 1
To be sparing or mean
The next party you throw, don't stint on the beer
- 2
A period of time spent doing or being something; a spell
He had a stint in jail
- 3
Any of several very small wading birds in the genus Calidris. Types of sandpiper, such as the dunlin or the sanderling
- 4
To restrain within certain limits; to bound; to restrict to a scant allowance
- 5
Limit; bound; restraint; extent
- 6
To assign a certain task to (a person), upon the performance of which he/she is excused from further labour for that day or period; to stent
- 7
Quantity or task assigned; proportion allotted
- 8
To impregnate successfully; to get with foal
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, stent or stint?
stent appears about once in every 2 million words; stint 4.1 times per million words.
stent about once in every 2 million wordsstint 4.1 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search stent vs stint?
“stent vs stint” is searched about 30 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.